Data copying method and apparatus in a thin provisioned system

• US 20070067588A1
• Filed: 11/22/2006
• Published: 03/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Yamamoto, Akira, Kano, Yoshiki
• Application Number:
  US11/604,090
• Publication Number:
  US 20070067588A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/162
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2087 with a common controller
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/02 Addressing or allocation; Relocation program address sequencing G06F9/00; arrangements for selecting an address in a digital store G11C8/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0223 User address space allocation, e.g. contiguous or non contiguous base addressing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0631 by allocating resources to storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0644 Management of space entities, e.g. partitions, extents, pools
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0647 Migration mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD

Abstract

Data migration includes copying between normal volumes and thin provisioned volumes. Data in a normal volume can be copied to a thin provisioned volume. Alternatively, data structures can be provided to facilitate converting a normal volume into a thin provisioned volume without actual copying of data. Copying from a thin provisioned volume to a normal volume is also disclosed.

Claims

1. A Storage system coupled to a host computer, the storage system comprising:

a storage controller coupled to a plurality of physical storage devices, that conducts an write request with logical block address from the host computer;

a source volume configured with at least one of the plurality of physical storage devices for storing write data associated with the write request;

wherein based upon a request from the host computer for migrating data in the source volume to a target volume, the storage controller allocates at least one of storage segments in the plurality of physical storage devices to the target volume and associates the allocated storage segment in the target volume with the logical block address containing the write data to copy the write data from the source volume to the target volume.

2. A storage system coupled to a host computer, the storage system comprising:

a storage controller coupled to a plurality of physical storage devices, that conducts an write request with the logical block address from the host computer;

a source volume configured with a least one of storage segments in the plurality of physical storage devices for storing write data associated with the write request, wherein each of the storage segments is allocated and associated with the logical block address, if the storage segment designated by the logical block address does not exist on the source volume;

wherein based upon a request from the host computer for migrating data in the source volume to a target volume, the storage controller copies data in the source storage volume to a location on the target volume that is identified by the logical block address associated with the storage segment, and fills locations on the target volume with NULL characters which do not correspond to any storage segments in the source volume.