Method and apparatus for mirroring objects between storage systems
AssigneeHitachi, Ltd.
InventorsNobuyuki Osaki, Manabu Kitamura
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The system is disclosed in which a storage system having data, and meta-data which describes attributes of the data including its address, can copy the data to a secondary system in a more efficient manner. The storage system identifies the blocks which contain the data described in the meta-data, then reads those blocks in the order of their addresses and copies them to the desired target. The method reduces disk access time and thereby speeds copy operations.
Claims19
In a storage system having a primary volume and a secondary volume, a method for copying data from the primary volume to the secondary volume comprising:
- creating a table of meta-data for data stored on the primary volume, the meta-data including at least volume identification data, object identification data, and address information data relating to a storage location where the data is stored;
- when a request is made to copy data from the primary volume to the secondary volume, copying at least some of the meta-data from the primary volume to the secondary volume, and
- preparing a list of all of the storage locations associated with the data to be copied;
- sorting the list of storage locations;
- and
- copying data from the primary volume to the secondary volume in accordance with the sorted list;
- wherein the data are in blocks, and the step of copying data further comprises copying a block at a selected logical block address to that same logical block address in the secondary volume.
A method as in claim 4 wherein the sorted list comprises a list of blocks of data sorted into address order.
(canceled)
A method as in claim I wherein a bitmap is used to synchronize the primary volume and the secondary volume.
A storage system comprising:
- a primary volume for storing data;
- a secondary volume for storing a copy of the data in the primary volume;
- a table of meta-data associated with the primary volume;
- a storage controller associated with the primary volume for, in response to a request that data be copied to the secondary volume, determining storage locations of the data to be copied and controlling that copy operation to arrange the data to be copied in an order based on the storage locations;
- wherein the data are in blocks, and the copy operation comprises copying a block at a selected logical block address to that same logical block address in the secondary volume.
In a storage system having a primary volume and a secondary volume, a method for copying data from the primary volume to the secondary volume comprising:
- creating a table of meta-data for data stored on the primary volume, the meta-data including at least address information data relating to a storage location where the data is stored and attribute data relating to at least one attribute of the data;
- when a request is made to copy data from the primary volume to the secondary volume, copying at least some of the meta-data from the primary volume to the secondary volume, and
- preparing a list of all of the storage locations associated with the data to be copied;
- sorting the list based on at least one of the attributes;
- and
- copying data from the primary volume to the secondary volume in accordance with the sorted lists;
- wherein the data are in blocks, and the step of copying data further comprises copying a block at a selected logical block address to that same logical block address in the secondary volume.
(canceled)
(canceled)
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.