Storage system with detection and correction of reference count based leaks in physical capacity

1. An apparatus comprising:

a storage system comprising a plurality of storage devices and an associated storage controller;

the storage controller being configured to implement a logical storage layer in which logical blocks are associated with respective content-based signatures and a physical storage layer in which the content-based signatures are associated with respective physical blocks in the storage devices;

wherein the storage controller is further configured:

to maintain reference counts for respective ones of the physical blocks, with a given such reference count indicating a number of the logical blocks that map via their respective content-based signatures to the same physical block;

to group the content-based signatures into one or more subsets; and

for a given one of the subsets:

to execute a scan of the logical blocks to detect any discrepancies in the maintained reference counts for the given subset; and

to correct detected discrepancies by updating the reference counts for the given subset based at least in part on results of the scan;

wherein the storage controller is implemented using at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the storage controller is further configured:

to detect a potentially content-altering access to at least one of the logical blocks having a content-based signature in the given subset that occurs during the scan of that subset; and

to invalidate the scan of the given subset responsive to detection of the potentially content-altering access.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein grouping the content-based signatures into one or more subsets comprises grouping the content-based signatures such that the content-based signatures in the given subset all share a common prefix.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the common prefix comprises a specified number of initial bytes of each of the content-based signatures in the given subset with the initial bytes each having a designated value.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein the common prefix comprises x initial bytes of the content-based signatures having respective designated values y 1 , . . . y x and further wherein the given subset represents a fraction

1

256

x

of a total scan space or at least one logical storage volume of the logical storage layer.

6. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the storage controller is further configured to control a size of the given subset by altering one or more parameters of the common prefix shared by the content-based signatures of the given subset.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the scan is initiated as a background process of the physical storage layer.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the storage controller is further configured to generate as part of the scan an additional set of reference counts for respective ones of the physical blocks associated with respective ones of the content-based signatures of the given subset.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the results of the scan comprise differences between particular ones of the additional reference counts generated as part of the scan and corresponding ones of the maintained reference counts with each such difference indicating a reference count discrepancy.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the storage controller is further configured:

to utilize a first portion of a designated number of bits for the maintained reference count for a corresponding one of the physical blocks; and

to utilize a second portion of the designated number of bits for an additional reference count generated as part of the scan for the corresponding physical block.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the designated number of bits comprises one or more bytes and the first and second portions of the designated number of bits comprise respective lower order and upper order portions of the one or more bytes.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the storage controller is further configured:

to utilize a first portion of a designated number of bits for the maintained reference count for a corresponding one of the physical blocks; and

to utilize a second portion of the designated number of bits to indicate whether or not at least one logical block having the content-based signature associated with the corresponding physical block was identified during the scan.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the second portion comprises a single bit of the designated number of bits.

14. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the storage controller is further configured to initiate a scan of another one of the subsets of content-based signatures responsive to the scan of the given subset of content-based signatures resulting in detection of at least a threshold number of reference count discrepancies.

15. A method comprising:

associating logical blocks of a storage system with respective content-based signatures;

associating the content-based signatures with respective physical blocks in a plurality of storage devices of the storage system;

maintaining reference counts for respective ones of the physical blocks, with a given such reference count indicating a number of the logical blocks that map via their respective content-based signatures to the same physical block;

grouping the content-based signatures into one or more subsets; and

for a given one of the subsets:

executing a scan of the logical blocks to detect any discrepancies in the maintained reference counts for the given subset; and

correcting detected discrepancies by updating the reference counts for the given subset based at least in part on results of the scan;

wherein the method is implemented by at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein grouping the content-based signatures into one or more subsets comprises grouping the content-based signatures such that the content-based signatures in the given subset all share a common prefix.

17. The method of claim 15 further comprising generating as part of the scan an additional set of reference counts for respective ones of the physical blocks associated with respective ones of the content-based signatures of the given subset.

18. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory processor-readable storage medium having stored therein program code of one or more software programs, wherein the program code when executed by at least one processing device causes said at least one processing device:

to associate logical blocks of a storage system with respective content-based signatures;

to associate the content-based signatures with respective physical blocks in a plurality of storage devices of the storage system;

to maintain reference counts for respective ones of the physical blocks, with a given such reference count indicating a number of the logical blocks that map via their respective content-based signatures to the same physical block;

to group the content-based signatures into one or more subsets; and

for a given one of the subsets:

to execute a scan of the logical blocks to detect any discrepancies in the maintained reference counts for the given subset; and

to correct detected discrepancies by updating the reference counts for the given subset based at least in part on results of the scan.

19. The computer program product of claim 18 wherein grouping the content-based signatures into one or more subsets comprises grouping the content-based signatures such that the content-based signatures in the given subset all share a common prefix.

20. The computer program product of claim 18 further comprising generating as part of the scan an additional set of reference counts for respective ones of the physical blocks associated with respective ones of the content-based signatures of the given subset.