Storage system and control method

The storage system connected to a host system, comprising:

• a storage medium for storing data sent from the host system;
• and
• a controller including a memory and a processor,
• wherein the controller comprises:
• a configuration management unit for managing a storage area provided by the storage medium by dividing it into a plurality of pools, providing a virtual logical device to the host system, and dynamically allocating the storage area to the logical device from a pool associated with the logical device according to a data write request from the host system for writing data into the logical device;
• a migration unit for changing the pool to allocate the storage area to an area that stored the data in the logical device to another pool according to an access status from the host system to the data written into the logical device, and controlling the storage medium for moving the data to the other pool;
• and
• a fault management unit for managing a correspondence relationship of the logical device and the pool, identifying, when a fault occurs in any one of the pools, an extent of impact of the fault based on the correspondence relationship of the logical device and the pool, and notifying the identified extent of impact of the fault to an administrator, and
• wherein, if the theoretical value of the ratio of the storage area and the measured value of the ratio of the storage area do not coincide, the fault management unit calculates a rise rate of an amount of the storage area per unit of time allocated to any one of the logical devices for each pool associated with that logical device, and determines whether the pool is included in the extent of impact of the fault based on the calculation result.

A storage system connected to a host system, comprising:

• a storage medium for storing data sent from the host system;
• and a controller including a memory and a processor,
• wherein the controller comprises:
• a configuration management unit for managing a storage area provided by the storage medium by dividing it into a plurality of pools, providing a virtual logical device to the host system, and dynamically allocating the storage area to the logical device from a pool associated with the logical device according to a data write request from the host system for writing data into the logical device;
• a migration unit for changing the pool to allocate the storage area to an area that stored the data in the logical device to another pool according to an access status from the host system to the data written into the logical device, and controlling the storage medium for moving the data to the other pool;
• and
• a fault management unit for managing a correspondence relationship of the logical device and the pool, identifying, when a fault occurs in any one of the pools, an extent of impact of the fault based on the correspondence relationship of the logical device and the pool, and notifying the identified extent of impact of the fault to an administrator,
• wherein the fault management unit manages, for each pool, a threshold of a used capacity rate of the pool in relation to the total capacity of that pool, and notifies the administrator when the rate of any one of the pools exceeds the threshold,
• wherein, if a fault occurs in any one of the pools, the fault management unit notifies the administrator of a recommended value of the threshold regarding the respective pools included in the extent of impact of the fault, and
• wherein the fault management unit calculates a recommended value F of the threshold of the respective pools based on the following formula with the time empirically considered to be capable of recovering a pool that was subject to a fault up to the depletion of that pool as T, and a rise rate of a real allocated size per unit of time of that pool as D:F=1−(D×T).

A control method of a storage system comprising a storage medium for storing data sent from the host system, and a controller, the controller including a memory and a processor, the control method comprising:

• managing, by the controller, a storage area provided by the storage medium by dividing it into a plurality of pools, providing a virtual logical device to the host system, and dynamically allocating the storage area to the logical device from a pool associated with the logical device according to a data write request from the host system for writing data into the logical device;
• changing, by the controller, a pool to allocate the storage area to an area that stored the data in the logical device to another pool according to an access status from the host system to the data written into the logical device, and controlling the storage medium for moving the data to the other pool;
• identifying, by the controller, when a fault occurs in any one of the pools, an extent of impact of the fault based on the correspondence relationship of the logical device and the pool, and notifying the identified extent of impact of the fault to an administrator;
• and
• comparing, by the controller, a theoretical value of a ratio of the storage area that is assumed to be allocated by the respective pools associated with the logical device to that logical device, and a measured value of a ratio of the storage area that has been actually allocated by the respective pools to that logical device, and identifying the extent of impact of the fault based on the comparative result.