Patent ID: 8719495

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a concatenation module concatenating a first Redundant Array of Independent Disks (“RAID”) with a second RAID into a top-level RAID with a single logical block address space range with first RAID addresses at a lower numbered portion of the single logical block address space range relative to second RAID addresses, the first RAID and the second RAID having disparate operational characteristics; and a redirection module in which storage operations issued from a storage client to the first RAID are redirected to the second raid according to a redirection policy when the first RAID satisfies a management condition; wherein the management condition comprises both available space on the first RAID reaching a space threshold and a drop in first RAID performance below a threshold level; wherein the redirection policy comprises the following: storage operations for dynamic-link library files, executable files, operating system files and operating system data from the storage client that are directed to the first RAID are not redirected to the second RAID; all other storage operations that are directed to the first RAID are redirected to the second RAID.