Patent ID: 8601312

Claim:
A storage apparatus for storing data comprising: a plurality of physical media provided with storage areas to store data; a storage group determining unit configured to determine, upon detecting a request to write new data to a virtual volume to be accessed, a storage group from which to allocate storage area by selecting a storage group from among a plurality of storage groups made up of the plurality of physical media, wherein the selected storage group is other than any storage groups that include a physical medium where a failure has occurred; and a storage area allocator configured to allocate storage area on the physical media existing within the storage group that was determined by the storage group determining unit to the virtual volume, the size of the storage area corresponds to the data size of the new data, wherein the storage group determining unit includes a storage area size manager configured to manage the sizes of the storage areas allocated to each storage group, and the storage group determining unit is configured to determine a storage group including a data size smaller than data size of the other storage groups managed by the storage area size manager and all physical media within the storage group are functioning normally.