Method and system for managing storage units

A system, comprising:

• a memory having machine readable medium comprising machine executable code having stored thereon instructions;
• and a processor module coupled to the memory, the processor module configured to execute the machine executable code for generating an intermediate data structure identifying storage units that are not referenced by any storage unit client from among a plurality of storage unit clients for storing information at a storage device;
• wherein a storage unit is a logical storage space made available to a virtual storage volume (VSV) provided to a storage unit client for storing information at the storage device and a plurality of VSV reference a same storage unit;
• providing a live reference data structure identifying any storage unit that is referenced by any storage unit client after the intermediate data structure is generated;
• and generating a data structure after removing any storage unit that is identified by the intermediate data structure and also included in the live reference data structure;
• wherein the data structure identifies storage units that are not referenced by any storage unit client and are ready for allocation.

A non-transitory, machine readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions for performing a method, comprising machine executable code which when executed by at least one machine, causes the machine to:

• generate a first data structure for identifying a set of storage units that are not referenced by any storage unit client, where a storage unit is a logical storage space made available to a virtual storage volume (VSV) that is provided to a storage unit client for storing information at a storage device;
• wherein a plurality of VSV reference a same storage unit;
• generate a second data structure after verifying that the storage units identified by the first data structure are not referenced by any storage unit client;
• wherein the second data structure is generated from the first data structure after filtering out any entry associated with a storage unit that may have been referenced by any storage unit client after the first data structure is generated;
• and before referencing a storage unit, use the second data structure to determine if any storage unit client request is for a storage unit identified by the second data structure.