I/O load balancing between virtual storage drives making up raid arrays

A computer program product for balancing load among virtual storage drives, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-usable program code embodied therein, the computer-usable program code configured to perform the following when executed by at least one processor:

• provide access to a plurality of physical storage drives;
• divide each physical storage drive into a plurality of virtual storage drives;
• create redundant array of independent disks (RAID) arrays from the virtual storage drives such that virtual storage drives on the same physical storage drive may be utilized in different RAID arrays, wherein each RAID array is made up of extents that are striped across its virtual storage drives;
• maintain input/output (I/O) statistics for each virtual storage drive individually to determine which virtual storage drives have high I/O traffic and which virtual storage drives have low I/O traffic;
• correlate the virtual storage drives to their respective RAID arrays;
• and
• migrate extents from RAID arrays having virtual storage drives with high I/O traffic to RAID arrays having virtual storage drives with low I/O traffic.

A system for balancing load among virtual storage drives, the system comprising:

• at least one processor;
• at least one memory device operably coupled to the at least one processor and storing instructions for execution on the at least one processor, the instructions causing the at least one processor to:
• provide access to a plurality of physical storage drives;
• divide each physical storage drive into a plurality of virtual storage drives;
• create redundant array of independent disks (RAID) arrays from the virtual storage drives such that virtual storage drives on the same physical storage drive may be utilized in different RAID arrays, wherein each RAID array is made up of extents that are striped across its virtual storage drives;
• maintain input/output (I/O) statistics for each virtual storage drive individually to determine which virtual storage drives have high I/O traffic and which virtual storage drives have low I/O traffic;
• correlate the virtual storage drives to their respective RAID arrays;
• and
• migrate extents from RAID arrays having virtual storage drives with high I/O traffic to RAID arrays having virtual storage drives with low I/O traffic.