Enhancing tiering storage performance

1. A method for improving data storage and retrieval performance in a computing environment by a processor, comprising:

for a tiered storage environment having levels corresponding to storage performance, using reference count information of at least one data segment maintained in the tiered storage environment to determine which of the levels in the tiered storage environment the at least one data segment will be assigned, wherein those of the at least one data segment having higher reference counts are assigned to a higher performance level than those having lower reference counts;

obtaining input/output performance data for input/output operations on the at least one data segment and transforming the input/output performance data into short term moving averages and long term moving averages;

sorting the at least one data segment having higher reference counts such that the at least one data segment having the most activity is at a top of a list;

comparing the short term moving averages of the at least one data segment in a performance level to the long term moving averages of the at least one data segment in the performance level and examining the reference count information of the at least one data segment in the performance level over time to determine whether a performance trend of the at least one data segment is increasing or decreasing; and

promoting the at least one data segment to a higher performance level in the tiered storage environment, if the at least one data segment has an increasing performance trend.

2. The method of claim 1 , further including obtaining the reference count information from a data deduplication engine.

3. The method of claim 1 , further including monitoring the tiered storage environment to associate the reference count information with the at least one data segment.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein upon a first access to the at least one data segment, and a determination that the at least one data segment has an associated reference count above a predetermined threshold, immediately migrating the at least one data segment to the higher performance level.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein using the reference count information includes using the reference count information as a weighted factor with additional characteristics of the at least one data segment to determine which of the levels to assign the at least one data segment.

6. The method of claim 5 , further including using an input/output activity, including at least one of a read count and a write count as the additional characteristics to determine which of the levels to assign the at least one data segment.

7. The method of claim 6 , further including subsequently using the input/output activity solely to determine if the at least one data segment should be migrated from a higher performance level to a lower performance level.