File system primitive providing native file system support for remote storage

摘要

In order to decrease the overall cost of storing large amounts of data, systems have been developed that use a hierarchy of storage devices from fast local disks to archival off-line storage. Such storage devices may be managed in a hierarchy where data that is accessed only infrequently can be moved to archival storage. The present invention relies on a tight integration of a hierarchical storage manager into the I/O system so that remotely stored attributes can be identified and tracked internally to the I/O system just like any other attributes. Implementations of the present invention may rely on a layered driver model where lower level drivers detect the existence of files with remotely stored attributes and then transfer control for processing I/O requests involving files with remotely stored attributes to higher level drivers. The higher level drivers then assume control to finish processing the I/O request.