Patent ID: 8856483

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for sparse provisioning in a virtual data storage service, comprising: under control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions, receiving a request to provision a virtual data store having a requested size; determining a portion of the requested size to allocate based at least in part on a utilization ratio estimate; determining at least one ratio of (i) a requested storage space to (ii) active storage space, the active storage space being maintained by at least one data storage server in a pool of data storage servers; selecting at least one data storage server from the pool of data storage servers based at least in part on the portion of the requested size and the at least one ratio; allocating a data storage space to be maintained by said at least one data storage server, the data storage space having a size corresponding to the portion of the requested size; and provisioning the virtual data store with the data storage space.