Thick and thin data volume management

• US 9,104,545 B2
• Filed: 01/22/2014
• Issued: 08/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2013
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: GlobalFoundries, Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Goodman, Daniel I., Matosevich, Rivka M., Nissan-Messing, Orit
• Primary Examiner(s): Huson, Zachary K
• Application Number:
  US14/160,909
• Publication Number:
  US 20150134903A1
• Time in Patent Office: 566 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• 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 3/0652 Erasing, e.g. deleting, data cleaning, moving of data to a wastebasket
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0655 Vertical data movement, i.e. input-output transfer; data movement between one or more hosts and one or more storage devices
• 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 3/0673 Single storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD

Abstract

Methods, apparatus and computer program products implement embodiments of the present invention that include configuring one or more storage devices as a plurality of physical storage units, each of the physical storage units having a storage granularity, and configuring, on the one or more storage devices, a thin provisioned storage pool having a physical number of the physical storage units and a logical number of logical storage units, the physical number being less than the logical number. Upon receiving a request to create a thick data volume having a requested number of the physical storage units, an available number of the physical storage units that are available in the thin provisioned pool can be identified. Upon determining that the requested number is less than the available number, the requested number of the physical storage units can be allocated, from the thin provisioned storage pool, to the thick data volume.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

configuring one or more storage devices as a plurality of physical storage units, each of the physical storage units having a storage granularity;

receiving a request to create a requested multiple of data volumes, each of the requested multiple of the data volumes having a requested maximum physical size;

determining, in response to the storage granularity, a minimum number of the physical storage units whose total storage size is greater than or equal to a total of the requested physical sizes;

allocating the minimum number of the physical storage units from the one or more of the storage devices; and

storing, to the allocated physical storage units, the requested multiple of the data volumes contiguously in an end-to-end configuration.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein determining the number comprises rounding up the requested physical size to the next multiple of the storage granularity.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein each of the storage devices is selected from a list consisting of a hard disk and a solid-state drive.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein a given data volume is stored at an offset within a given physical storage unit.

5. The method according to claim 4, and comprising storing, to a distinct entry for the given data volume in a storage mapping table, the given physical storage unit and the offset within the given physical storage unit.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein a given data volume spans a two adjacent physical storage units.

7. The method according to claim 1, and comprising receiving a subsequent request to store an additional data volume, and storing, to the allocated physical storage units, the requested multiple of the data volumes and the additional data volume contiguously in an end-to-end configuration.

8. A storage system, comprising:

one or more storage devices; and

a processor arranged;

to configure the one or more storage devices as a plurality of physical storage units, each of the physical storage units having a storage granularity,

to receive a request to create a requested multiple of data volumes, each of the requested multiple of the data volumes having a requested maximum physical size,

to determine, in response to the storage granularity, a minimum number of the physical storage units whose total storage size is greater than or equal to a total of the requested physical sizes,

to allocate the minimum number of the physical storage units from the one or more of the storage devices, and

to store, to the allocated physical storage units, the requested multiple of the data volumes contiguously in an end-to-end configuration.

9. The storage system according to claim 8, wherein the processor is configured to determine the number by rounding up the requested physical size to the next multiple of the storage granularity.

10. The storage system according to claim 8, wherein each of the storage devices is selected from a list consisting of a hard disk and a solid-state drive.

11. The storage system according to claim 8, wherein the processor is configured to store a given data volume at an offset within a given physical storage unit.

12. The storage system according to claim 11, and comprising a memory configured to store a storage mapping table having multiple entries, and wherein the processor is configured to store, in a given entry for the given data volume, the given physical storage unit and the offset within the given physical storage unit.

13. The storage system according to claim 8, wherein a given data volume spans a two adjacent physical storage units.

14. The storage system according to claim 8, wherein the processor is configured to receive a subsequent request to store an additional data volume, and to store, to the allocated physical storage units, the requested multiple of the data volumes and the additional data volume contiguously in an end-to-end configuration.

15. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer readable program code arranged to configure one or more storage devices as a plurality of physical storage units, each of the physical storage units having a storage granularity;

computer readable program code configured to receive a request to create a requested multiple of data volumes, each of the requested multiple of the data volumes having a requested maximum physical size;

computer readable program code configured to determine, in response to the storage granularity, a minimum number of the physical storage units whose total storage size is greater than or equal to a total of the requested physical sizes;

computer readable program code configured to allocate the minimum number of the physical storage units from the one or more of the storage devices; and

computer readable program code configured to store, to the allocated physical storage units, the requested multiple of the data volumes contiguously in an end-to-end configuration.

16. The computer program product according to claim 15, wherein the computer readable program code is configured to determine the number by rounding up the requested physical size to the next multiple of the storage granularity.

17. The computer program product according to claim 15, wherein each of the storage devices is selected from a list consisting of a hard disk and a solid-state drive.

18. The computer program product according to claim 15, wherein a given data volume is stored at an offset within a given physical storage unit.

19. The computer program product according to claim 18, and comprising computer readable program code configured to store, to a distinct entry for the given data volume in a storage mapping table, the given physical storage unit and the offset within the given physical storage unit.

20. The computer program product according to claim 15, wherein a given data volume spans a two adjacent physical storage units.