Reducing concurrency of garbage collection operations

An apparatus, comprising:

• multiple storage devices having respective sets of storage regions;
• and
• a processor configured:
• to identify, for the multiple storage devices, respective default low storage region thresholds that are used for garbage collection,
• to define, for each given storage region, a time threshold and an alternative low storage region threshold greater than the default low storage region threshold for the given storage device, and
• while processing input/output operations for each given storage device:
• to maintain a count of unused storage regions in the given storage device,
• to initialize a timer, and
• to initiate a garbage collection operation upon the timer matching the time threshold for the given storage device and upon the count of unused storage regions being less than or equal to the low storage region threshold.

A computer program product, the computer program product comprising:

• a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising:
• computer readable program code configured to identify, in a storage system comprising multiple storage devices having respective sets of storage regions, respective default low storage region thresholds that are used for garbage collection;
• computer readable program code configured to define, for each given storage region, a time threshold and an alternative low storage region threshold greater than the default low storage region threshold for the given storage device;
• and
• while processing input/output operations for each given storage device:
• computer readable program code configured to maintain a count of unused storage regions in the given storage device,
• computer readable program code configured to initialize a timer, and
• computer readable program code configured to initiate a garbage collection operation upon the timer matching the time threshold for the given storage device and upon the count of unused storage regions being less than or equal to the low storage region threshold.