Storage system including a virtual volume, a plurality of disk drives and a plurality of flash memory devices
The temporary area capacity required to be secured with respect to the whole permanent area is calculated in accordance with the capacity and access frequency of a host computer data permanent area of a disk device contained in the storage system and a disk device of an external storage device that is managed by a storage virtualization function of this storage system. The nonvolatile memory is defined as the temporary area and is used to temporarily store host computer data when a data I/O from the host computer is processed. The required capacity of the temporary area is re-calculated in accordance with an event such as a configuration change in the external storage system.
1. A storage system comprising:
a storage controller providing a virtual volume;
a plurality of disk drives;
a plurality of flash memory devices, each of the plurality of flash memory devices including a memory controller and a plurality of flash memories, and being configured to be a data storage area for storing data; and
the storage controller configured to:
create a cache memory area using a first storage area of the plurality of flash memory devices in which data is temporarily stored,
create a pool area using a second storage area of the plurality of flash memory devices and a third storage area of the plurality of disk drives, the second storage area being different from the first storage area, and
allocate a storage region of the second storage area or the third storage area in the pool area to the virtual volume in response to receiving a write request to the virtual volume.
2. A storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the storage controller is configured to copy data, that is temporarily stored in the first storage area, to the plurality of disk drives.
3. A storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the storage controller is configured to copy data based on a frequency of a read request to the data that is stored in the plurality of the disk drives to the first storage area.
4. A storage system according to claim 1 , wherein data is duplicated in the first storage area.
5. A storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the storage controller is configured to create the first storage area on the basis of a first request indicating a first capacity of the first storage area, and create the pool area on the basis of a second request indicating a second capacity of the second storage area.
6. A storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the storage controller is configured to transfer dirty data in the first storage area to the pool area in response to receiving a third request indicating releasing the first storage area from the cache memory area.
7. A storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the second storage area is corresponded to a RAID group.
8. A storage system comprising
a storage controller providing a virtual volume;
a plurality of disk drives;
a plurality of flash memory devices, each of the plurality of flash memory devices including a memory controller and a plurality of flash memories, and being configured to be a data storage area for storing data; and
the storage controller configured to:
receive a first command for setting a cache memory area using a first storage area of the plurality of flash memory devices for temporarily storing data,
receive a second command for setting a pool area using a second storage area of the plurality of flash memory devices and a third storage area of the plurality of disk drives, the second storage area being different from the first storage area, and
allocate a storage region of the second storage area or the third storage area in the pool area to the virtual volume in response to receiving a write request to the virtual volume.
9. A storage system according to claim 8 , wherein the storage controller is configured to copy data, that is stored in the first storage area temporarily, to the plurality of disk drives.
10. A storage system according to claim 8 , wherein data is duplicated in the first storage area.
11. A storage system according to claim 8 , the first command includes a capacity information of the first storage area, and the second command includes a capacity information of the second storage area.
12. A storage system according to claim 8 , wherein the storage controller is configured to transfer dirty data in the first storage area to the pool area in response to receiving a third command for releasing the first storage area from the first storage area.
13. A storage system according to claim 8 , wherein the second storage area is corresponded to a RAID group.
14. A storage system according to claim 1 , wherein the second storage area and the third storage area are created after creating the cache memory area.
15. A storage system according to claim 8 , wherein the second storage area and the third storage area are created after creating the cache memory area.