Mapping of logical start addresses to physical start addresses in a system having misalignment between logical and physical data blocks

A method comprising:

• receiving at a network storage server, from a storage client, a request for accessing data of a stored data object, the data being stored as a plurality of physical data blocks on a physical storage medium accessible to the network storage server, the plurality of physical data blocks being represented in the network storage server as a plurality of logical data blocks, wherein the logical data blocks are not aligned with the corresponding physical data blocks on the physical storage medium;
• and
• in response to the request,
• determining a starting sector value for the request;
• identifying an inode of the data object;
• using the inode to locate an alignment data structure for the data object, the alignment data structure containing a plurality of storage medium sector values;
• using the alignment data structure to map the starting sector value for the request to a new sector value representing a physical start address of the data;
• and
• using the new sector value to access the data object on the physical storage medium.

A network storage server comprising:

• a network interface through which to receive a data access request from a storage client;
• a storage interface through which to access a mass storage subsystem which includes a physical storage medium;
• a storage manager to represent data as a plurality of logical blocks, each of the logical blocks representing a corresponding physical block stored on the physical storage medium, wherein the logical blocks are not aligned with the corresponding physical blocks on the physical storage medium;
• and
• a mapping unit to use an alignment data structure to map a start location of one of the logical blocks to a corresponding start location of one of the physical blocks in response to the data access request.