Patent ID: 7529902

Claim:
A method operable in a storage controller of a storage system having a plurality of storage devices, the method comprising: defining, within the storage controller, a plurality of regions within the storage capacity of the plurality of storage devices; and processing multiple block I/O requests substantially concurrently within the storage controller to access information on the plurality of storage devices, wherein the processing of each block I/O request of the multiple block I/O requests further comprises: identifying at least one affected region, of the plurality of regions, affected by the block I/O request to process wherein the identified region comprises one or more blocks identified in the block I/O request; acquiring a lock for the at least one affected region to preclude conflicting access to the at least one affected region by processing of another block I/O request; performing the block I/O request to completion following acquisition of the lock; and releasing the lock following completion of the block I/O request.