LOAD BASED FILE ALLOCATION AMONG A PLURALITY OF STORAGE DEVICES

摘要

A method for balancing loads among a plurality of data storage devices, includes: receiving a request from a user device to download a data file; identifying a first set of storage devices containing the requested data file, wherein the first set comprises one or more storage devices; identifying a first storage device from the set that is currently least busy among the storage devices in the first set, and directing the first storage device to serve the request; determining if the first storage device is too busy; and if the first storage device is too busy copying the requested data file to a second storage device which did not previously store the data file, thereby adding the second storage device to the first set of storage devices containing the requested data file.