Patent ID: 8635422

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for reclaiming storage space from thin-provisioned storage systems, at least a portion of the method being performed by a computing device comprising at least one processor, the method comprising: identifying a deleted volume; identifying a plurality of disks within a thin-provisioned storage system that allocated storage space to the deleted volume; in response to the deleted volume being deleted, identifying reclaimable storage space made available by the deletion of the deleted volume by, for each disk within the plurality of disks, saving information on the disk that: indicates that the disk contains reclaimable storage space; identifies which locations of the storage space were allocated by the disk to the deleted volume before it was deleted; identifying a policy that specifies reclaiming the storage space that was allocated to the deleted volume before it was deleted asynchronously with respect to the deletion of the deleted volume; using the information saved on each disk to reclaim the storage space that was allocated to the deleted volume before it was deleted asynchronously with respect to the deletion of the deleted volume in accordance with the policy.