Patent ID: 6442650
Filing Date: 2002-08-27
Classification: G06F,G11B

Abstract:
A method for balancing access activity on a plurality of physical disk storage devices wherein at least two of the physical disk storage devices are divided into blocks of contiguous storage locations wherein each physical disk storage device has characteristic latency and data transfer times, said method comprising the steps of:A. compiling disk access statistics for each block over a time interval, B. compiling a list of all pairs of exchangeable blocks on the physical disk storage devices, C. generating, in response to the compiled statistics including at least one of the latency and data transfer times, a disk utilization time that represents the total time required to complete all disk accesses during the time interval, D. selecting a configuration of blocks on physical disk storage devices with exchanged blocks based upon the disk utilization times, and E. exchanging the selected pair of exchangeable blocks on the physical disk storage devices.