Fine grained tiered storage with thin provisioning

摘要

A system for managing data includes providing at least one logical device having a table of information that maps sections of the logical device to sections of at least two storage areas. Characteristics of data associated with a one section of the logical device may be evaluated. The section of the data may moved between the at least two storage areas according to a policy and based on the characteristics of the data. The table of information is updated according to the movement of data between the at least two storage areas. Each of the at least two storage areas may correspond to a different storage tier, and each of the storage tiers may have different characteristic, such as speed of pools of storage devices within the tiers. A write target policy may be applied to store initial writes in a preferred location of the at least two storage areas.

主权项

1. A method for managing data, comprising:
providing at least one logical device having a table of information that maps sections of the logical device to sections of at least two storage areas, wherein the table of information identifies sections of the logical device for which no corresponding physical storage space of the at least two storage areas has yet been allocated, the table of information indicating physical storage space that is available on the at least two storage areas even though the corresponding physical storage space has not yet been allocated; evaluating characteristics of data associated with at least one of the sections of the logical device; moving the at least one of the sections of the logical device between the at least two storage areas according to a policy and according to characteristics of the data identified in the table of information, wherein each of the at least two storage areas corresponds to a different storage tier and wherein the table of information includes an indication for each of the storage tiers that identifies at least one characteristic for each of the storage tiers, the characteristic being different for each of the at least two storage areas; and updating the table of information according to the movement of data between the at least two storage areas.