Storage performance

1. An apparatus comprising:

at least a first node for storing pieces of a digital object and having a storage;

wherein the first node comprises:

a requester for requesting one or more pieces of the digital object;

a transmitter for transferring one or more pieces of the digital object to at least one further node among a plurality of nodes;

a receiver for receiving content availability messages from at least some of the plurality of nodes; and

a sender for sending at least one limited content availability message to at least one further node among the plurality of nodes, whereby the at least one limited content availability message indicates a subset but not all of the pieces of the digital object available through the first node, and whereby at least a portion of the subset of the pieces of the digital object that are indicated in the limited content availability message are selected so as to decrease time required for the first node to access the at least a portion of the subset of the pieces of the digital object.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the subset comprises the pieces of the digital object preferentially transferable by the transmitter to at least one further node.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the storage has a fast access storage and a disk storage and the subset comprises at least some of the pieces of the digital object stored in the fast access storage.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the subset comprises at least some of the pieces of the digital object recently accessed by the disk storage.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the subset comprises at least some of the pieces of the digital object accessible in a local storage.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the subset comprises at least some of the requested pieces of the digital object identified by the receiver from the received content availability messages from the plurality of nodes.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the subset comprises at least some of the pieces available on further storages.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the subset comprises at least some of the pieces of the digital object sent in limited content availability messages to at least one further node among the plurality of nodes.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the subset is selected such that the number of pieces communicated to a member of the plurality of nodes through the limited content availability message is based on previously received content availability messages from the member of the plurality of nodes.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 , wherein the first node is a peer or seed in a peer-to-peer network.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first node is a proxy cache.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first node comprises a plurality of proxy caches.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein at least two of the plurality of proxy caches stores a different subset of the pieces of the digital object.

14. A method comprising:

sending, from a first node to at least one further node among a plurality of nodes in a network, at least one limited content availability message, whereby the at least one limited content availability message indicates a subset but not all of the pieces of the digital object available through the first node, and whereby at least a portion of the subset of the pieces of the digital object that are indicated in the limited content availability message are selected so as to decrease time required for the first node to access the at least a portion of the subset of the pieces of the digital object;

receiving, at the first node, a request for pieces of the digital object from at least one of the plurality of nodes; and

transferring one or more pieces of the digital object from the first node to the at least one of the plurality of nodes.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein sending to at least one further node among the plurality of nodes at least one limited content availability message comprises including in the at least one limited content availability message at least some of the pieces of the digital object that are present in a fast access storage.

16. The method of claim 14 , wherein sending to at least one further nodes among the plurality of nodes at least one limited content availability message comprises including in the at least one limited content availability message at least some of the pieces of the digital object that are present in a local storage.

17. The method of claim 14 , further comprising accessing at least some of the pieces of the digital object stored in a slow access storage and transferring the accessed pieces of the digital object to the fast access storage.

18. The method of claim 14 , further comprising analysing a plurality of the requests for pieces of the digital object from the plurality of nodes, thereby identifying most likely requested pieces of the digital object, and ensuring that at least some of the most likely requested pieces of the digital object are in the fast access storage.

19. The method of claim 14 further comprising requesting one or more pieces of the digital object and transferring the requested one or more pieces of the digital object and storing the requested one or more pieces of the digital object into a storage device.

20. The method of claim 14 , wherein the first node comprises at least two memories and different pieces of the digital object are stored in different ones of the at least two memories.