Patent ID: 6571261
Filing Date: 2003-05-27
Classification: G06F,G11B,Y10S

Abstract:
A method for defragmentation of a shared file system storage network associated with a plurality of processing nodes, the method on a processing node comprising the steps of:(a) stepping through file metadata in a file structure in order to find a file fragment, the file fragment being a file or part of a file that occupies m sub-blocks of a disk block, where each disk block is divided into n sub-blocks that can be allocated independently, and m(b) when a file fragment is found, determining if the file fragment is located in a first list or a second list, or if the file fragment is located in a full disk block; (c) if the file fragment is not located in the first list or the second list, and the file fragment is not located in a full block, searching for a suitable hole in the first list; and (d) if the suitable hole is found in the first list, migrating the file fragment to the suitable hole, wherein a full disk block has all of its sub-blocks occupied, the first list contains disk blocks each having at least one hole because not all of its sub-blocks are occupied, and the second list contains disk blocks in which any file fragments are currently not allowed to be migrated.