Patent ID: 9152550
Filing Date: 2015-10-06
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of operating a storage system having a set of storage processors coupled to a set of physical storage devices, each storage processor including a processor, network interface circuitry coupling the processor to a network via which storage requests for data of the storage system are received from external users of the storage system, and device interface circuitry coupling the processor to the set of storage devices, comprising: operating the storage system as a network-attached storage system implementing a network file system, the network file system exposing storage resources to the external users as volumes of the network file system and using respective logical units of storage internally to represent units of storage assigned to the volumes; using a block-level file system to handle block-level physical data storage operations for data of two or more of the logical units of storage based on corresponding storage requests directed to the volumes presented to the external users of the storage system, each logical unit of storage being organized into a respective array of data blocks and being associated with a respective distinct file in the block-level file system, the block-level file system including file-system program instructions executed at any given time by the processor of an owning one of the storage processors, the processor having the file block-level system mounted thereon and providing access to the data blocks of each of the logical units of storage; and by the respective processor at each of the storage processors: