Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Software Engineering Company, Ltd.

Yutaka Takata

Shintaro Inoue

Hiroshi Ogasawara

Shinichi Nakayama

Nobuyuki Saika

Naotaka Kobayashi

Daisuke Orikasa

Yoichi Mizuno

Yoshiaki Eguchi

Naoto Matsunami

Ai Satoyama

Koji Sonoda

Mikio Fukuoka

Ken Matsuda

Manabu Kitamura

Eiju Katsuragi

Homare Kanie

Jinichi Shikawa

Takahiro Nakano

Hisaharu Takeuchi

Takashi Oeda

Junichi Hara

Takayoshi Iitsuka

Kunihito Matsuki

Kouji Sonoda

Masaaki Kobayashi

Takeshi Hashimoto

Yoshinori Ohira

Yoshinori Okami

Katsuhiro Uchiumi

Akiyoshi Hashimoto

Naoya Takahashi

Masamitsu Takahashi

Yoshihito Nakagawa

Yoshinori Igarashi

Seiki Morita

Masami Maeda

Naoyuki Masuda

Tomoyuki Kato

Ran Ogata

Katsuya Sato

Takeo Fujimoto

Makoto Deguchi

Yutaka Oshima

Junichi Hiwatashi

Hironobu Inoue

Manabu Sakuramoto

Takayoshi Iltsuka

Haruka Kashiwazaki

When the storage system according to the present invention receives a request for writing new data to a first logical volume after having received a first pair creating request, the storage system stores the new data in a cache memory. Then when the storage system subsequently receives a second pair creating request, even if the cache memory still has stored therein the data identical to the data that was stored on the first logical volume at the point in time when the storage system received the first pair formation request, and even if this identical data has not yet been copied to the second logical volume, the storage system omits to copy this identical data to the second logical volume.

Storage system and control method therefor

When a plurality of applications operating in a host computer or a storage system uses a same pool, actual data constantly allocated to an upper tier drive satisfying the required response performance will continue to increase. Therefore, when data is migrated by IOPS in page units, the access performance such as the response speed may not be satisfied. Therefore, according to the present invention, multiple virtual volumes used in applications are subjected to grouping. Relocation conditions corresponding to performances required for each group are set in advance, and reallocation of tiers according to the relocation conditions is performed.

Storage system coupled to a host computer and a management device

A storage system comprises a storage medium including a plurality of physical storage areas. The storage system controls a host computer to recognize a logical volume having a plurality of virtual storage areas, reads the data from the physical storage area assigned to the virtual storage area of the logical volume, determines whether or not the read data includes only the specific pattern data, and cancels the assignment of the physical storage area to the virtual storage area if the read data includes only the specific pattern data.

Storage system for controlling assignment of storage area to virtual volume storing specific pattern data

Multiple storage area groups into which multiple storage areas provided by multiple storage devices are classified with reference to storage area attributes are managed. The multiple logical volumes to which, in accordance with a write request to at least one address included in multiple addresses in the logical volume, at least one storage area included in the multiple storage areas is allocated are provided. In accordance with the access condition of the at least one address in the logical volume, the data written to the at least one address by the write request is migrated from the at least one storage area included in one of the multiple storage area groups to at least one storage area in another storage area group included in the multiple storage area groups.

Storage system providing virtual volumes

According to the prior art storage system, in order to add a storage device to a pool after a storage system has been operated for a certain period of time, the performance may be varied significantly according to the access performance of the application using the pool, and it was not possible to realize an optimum allocation corresponding to the operation form if the storage device is set to be included in a pool of a given tier based on the type of the storage device. Therefore, the present invention provides a system in which a performance test is performed in accordance with an access tendency of the application using the pool to thereby compute the tier capable of having the storage device added thereto, based on which the storage device can be allocated to an appropriate pool.

Storage subsystem and storage control method

Provided are a storage apparatus and data management method with which the usage ratio of each of the storage tiers is determined beforehand for each virtual volume and data can be managed by being migrated between storage tiers within a range of predetermined usage ratios. A storage apparatus, comprising storage devicesof a plurality of types of varying performance; and a controllerwhich manages each of storage areas provided by the storage devicesof a plurality of types by means of storage tiers ST of a plurality of different types respectively, and which assigns the storage areas in page units to virtual volumes VVOL from any storage tier among the storage tiers ST of a plurality of types, the controllermanaging usage ratios of the storage tiers ST of a plurality of types and assigning the storage areas in page units to the virtual volumes VVOL based on the usage ratio managed.

Storage apparatus and data management method for storage area allocation based on access frequency

The present invention provides the function of dynamically switching the allocation of snapshot data in a pool according to the use status of the pool. More specifically, the present invention provides the function of dynamically switching a storage mode to be applied to the pool from a storage mode in which the snapshot data is aggregated in a specific pool volume to a storage mode in which the snapshot data is distributed to plural pool volumes, or from the storage mode in which the snapshot data is distributed to the plural pool volumes to the storage mode in which the snapshot data is aggregated in the specific pool volume, according to the use status of the pool.

Storage device and method for controlling the same

This storage apparatus for providing a dynamically expandable virtual volume to a host system to access the virtual volume comprises an allocation unit for configuring a group with a plurality of disks for providing a storage area to be allocated to the virtual volume, and allocating the storage area respectively from a plurality of the groups to the virtual volume; and a storage area arrangement unit for rearranging the storage area in each of the groups being used by the virtual volume to become optimal among each of the groups based on external operation.

Storage apparatus and method for arranging storage areas and managing error correcting code (ECC) groups

This invention intends to provide the computer system equalizing the storage capacity immediately and appropriately to multiple real logical areas dynamically providing storage capacity to virtual logical areas. This invention is the computer system which, in the process of performing the dynamic allocation of storage areas to virtual volumes in response to accesses from the higher-level device, when adding pool volumes to the pool, migrates storage areas among multiple logical areas, and maintains the balance of the storage capacity.

Computer system and its control method

The present invention comprises a virtual volume, which is a virtual storage area comprising multiple virtual page groups, a pool, which is a storage area comprising multiple pool page groups having different access performance, and a controller, which comprises a corresponding relationship between the virtual page and the pool page, and accesses the pool page corresponding to the virtual page based on accesses to the virtual page from other apparatuses, and the controller, based on an access load trend with respect to each virtual page in each time slot, executes processing for deciding an ideal pool page allocation destination for each virtual page in each time slot, and reallocating a virtual page to the ideal pool page at a time, which is prior to a start time, so that the ideal pool page can be allocated to each virtual page by the start time of each time slot.

Storage system and method for reallocating data

A storage system and data management method is provided that improves the reliability and fault tolerance of the hard disks saving data utilizing an AOU function. A storage system comprises a first correlating section for correlating a plurality of RAID groups composed of a plurality of physical disks, and the pool region, a second correlating section for correlating the pool region and the storage regions of the virtual volumes, a first allocation section for allocating first data from the host apparatus to the first storage region of the first RAID group based on write requests from the host apparatus, and a second allocation section for distributing second data from the host apparatus at and allocating the second data to any storage regions of the RAID group, with the exception of the first storage region of the first RAID group allocated by the first allocation section, based on write requests.

Storage system and data management method for mirroring volumes with allocate on use function

The statuses of an actual area are (1) a first status which indicates that [the actual area] is already initialized and can be assigned to a virtual area, (2) a second status which indicates that [the actual area] is already assigned to a virtual area, and (3) a third status which indicates that [the actual area] cannot be assigned to a virtual area and initialization which is specified data write is to be performed. The storage controller limits the total virtual volume capacity which is the total capacity of one or more virtual volumes which are associated with the pool, in accordance with whether the pool comprises an actual page in the third status or not, to the capacity of the pool or smaller.

Method of controlling total capacity of virtual volumes associated with pool and storage apparatus

A controller in a storage system receives a capacity change command specifying a device, and changes, to a volume capacity value indicating a storage capacity following the capacity change command, a volume capacity value of a virtual volume associated with the device specified in management information, which includes the volume capacity value indicating a storage capacity of the virtual volume. As such, without increasing or decreasing the number of logical volumes associated with a device provided by a host device, the device can be changed in storage capacity.

Storage system and method for storage capacity change of host-device-specified device

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Ninomiya, Japan

Yutaka Takata