public static byte[] removeMetaData(byte[] data) {
    if (data == null || data.length == 0) {
      return data;
    }
    // check the magic data; to be backward compatible
    byte magic = data[0];
    if (magic != MAGIC) {
      return data;
    }

    int idLength = Bytes.toInt(data, ID_LENGTH_OFFSET);
    int dataLength = data.length - MAGIC_SIZE - ID_LENGTH_SIZE - idLength;
    int dataOffset = MAGIC_SIZE + ID_LENGTH_SIZE + idLength;

    byte[] newData = new byte[dataLength];
    System.arraycopy(data, dataOffset, newData, 0, dataLength);
    return newData;
  }
The metadata append to the start of data on zookeeper.
hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/zookeeper/ZKMetadata.java