Patent ID: 7433901

Claim:
An apparatus to collocate data, the apparatus comprising: a processor; a memory communicatively coupled to the processor, the memory further comprising: a mode module configured to set a collocation mode of a storage pool comprising a plurality of storage pool volumes configured to store data, wherein the collocation mode is set from a plurality of collocation modes comprising a storage device type, node type, and a collocation group type; an assignment module configured to assign one or more sources of at least two sources comprising data to a collocation group; and a collocation module configured to collocate the at least two sources' data to a minimum number of storage pool volumes in the storage pool based on the collocation mode of the storage pool and collocation group assignment of the at least two sources, and wherein the collocation module: collocates a node's data to a minimum number of storage pool volumes in response to the collocation mode of the storage pool being node type; collocates a storage device's data to a minimum number of storage pool volumes in response to the collocation mode of the storage pool being storage device type; and collocates the one or more sources' data to a minimum number of storage pool volumes in response to the collocation mode of the storage pool being collocation group type and the one or more sources being assigned to a collocation group by the assignment module.