Patent ID: 9262082
Filing Date: 2016-02-16
CPC Classification: G06F

Claim Text:
1. A storage apparatus comprising: a plurality of destination storage devices; and one or more processors that perform a procedure including: acquiring a copy request which specifies a plurality of logical volume pairs, each of which is made up of a source logical volume and a destination logical volume, each source logical volume being one of logical volumes provided in a plurality of source storage devices of an external storage apparatus, and each destination logical volume being one of logical volumes provided in the plurality of destination storage devices of the storage apparatus; searching for copy-unexecuted logical volume pairs each being a logical volume pair that is specified by the copy request but has not yet been subjected to copying operation; preferentially selecting one of the source storage devices that includes a larger number of source logical volumes belonging to the copy-unexecuted logical volume pairs, compared to other source storage devices of the external storage apparatus; preferentially selecting one of the destination storage devices that includes a larger number of destination logical volumes belonging to the copy-unexecuted logical volume pairs, compared to other destination storage devices of the storage apparatus; reselecting another source storage device or another destination storage device, when there is no copy-unexecuted logical volume pair whose source logical volume is in the preferentially-selected source storage device and whose destination logical volume is in the preferentially-selected destination storage device, the reselecting being performed by: calculating first variations in a source ready count among the source storage devices of the external storage apparatus, the source ready count representing how many source logical volumes in an individual source storage device belong to the copy-unexecuted logical volume pairs, calculating second variations in a destination ready count among the destination storage devices of the storage apparatus, the destination ready count representing how many destination logical volumes in an individual source storage device belong to the copy-unexecuted logical volume pairs, deselecting the preferentially-selected source storage device and reselecting another source storage device for copying to the preferentially-selected destination storage device that is not deselected, when the first variations are smaller than the second variations, and deselecting the preferentially-selected destination storage device and reselecting another destination storage device for copying from the preferentially-selected source storage device that is not deselected, when the second variations are smaller than the first variations; determining a copy-unexecuted logical volume pair whose source logical volume is in the preferentially-selected or reselected source storage device and whose destination logical volume is in the preferentially-selected or reselected destination storage device; and copying data from the source logical volume of the determined copy-unexecuted logical volume pair to the destination logical volume of the determined copy-unexecuted logical volume pair.