Patent ID: 8713281

Claim:
A method comprising: storing data on a virtual storage system for use by a plurality of hosts, each host owning a plurality of virtual containers, the virtual storage system comprising a plurality of storage devices for storing a plurality of virtual containers, each virtual container comprising a data grouping; sending, from a first host, a vendor-unique command to a first storage device, the vendor-unique command specifying a plurality of starting logical block addresses (LBAs) for a plurality of virtual containers owned by the first host, each starting LBA being used by the first host to refer to a start of a virtual container owned by the first host, the vendor-unique command from a communication protocol that reserves a range of commands for maintenance or support of storage devices, the range of commands comprising the vendor-unique command, the vendor-unique command comprising a parameter data size that increases to accommodate each starting LBA for the plurality of virtual containers owned by the first host; and placing the plurality of virtual containers at natural storage boundaries of the first storage device based on the vendor-unique command, each virtual container being mapped to a storage device physical address that starts at a natural storage boundary of the first storage device.