SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MANAGING DISK SPACE IN A THIN-PROVISIONED STORAGE SUBSYSTEM
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for managing disk space in a thin-provisioned storage subsystem. If a number of free segments in a free segment pool at a storage subsystem is detected as below a desired minimum, one or more of the following is performed: selecting and adding logical devices (LDEVs) from an internal storage as free segments to the free segment pool, transitioning LDEVs to a virtual device (VDEV), and/or selecting and adding LDEVs from an external storage as free segments to the free segment pool. The transitioning includes identifying partially used or completely used LDEVs and transitioning these to the VDEV. Data migration may also occur by: selecting a source segment at a VDEV for migration, reading data from the source segment, writing the data to a target segment, the target segment being a free segment from the free segment pool, and assigning the target segment to the VDEV.
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Citations
23 Claims
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1-14. -14. (canceled)
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15. A thin-provisioned storage subsystem for managing disk space comprising:
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a controller, the controller including a first port for providing a connection with at least one host device for I/O operations, a second port for providing a connection with an external storage subsystem, and a third port for providing a connection with an external console; and
at least one storage device, the at least one storage device interconnected with the controller via a fourth port on the controller, wherein said storage subsystem includes the ability to perform at least one of transitioning logical devices (LDEVs) to a virtual device (VDEV) or adding logical devices from an external storage as free segments to a free segment pool, if a number of free segments in the free segment pool is below a desired minimum, the transitioning including identifying partially used or completely used LDEVs and transitioning these to the virtual device, and wherein each controller further comprises;
a processor; and
a memory, the memory including modules comprising;
a virtual device manager, the virtual device manager creating and managing one or more thin-provisioning VDEV;
a migrater, the migrater performing data migration from a LDEV to VDEV, from VDEV to LDEV, from VDEV to VDEV, and from LDEV to LDEV. a logical device manager, the logical device manager creating LDEVs to provide a logical storage from the at least one storage device to the at least host devices for the I/O operations; and
a segment manager, the segment manager containing the free segment pool and managing the free segments in the free segment pool, wherein the memory stores a logical unit to logical device mapping and a disk to external logical unit mapping. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23)
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20. (canceled)
Specification