Patent ID: 8656133

Claim:
A computer program product for obtaining blocks of storage in a computing environment, said computer program product comprising: a non-transitory computer readable storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method comprising: obtaining a request for a block of storage of a requested type, the storage being auxiliary storage, the auxiliary storage being separated into a plurality of storage extents of a predefined size, wherein a storage extent of the plurality of storage extents is a range of auxiliary storage of the predefined size and the storage extent initially has an extent type of empty associated therewith, the extent type of empty being the extent type for the extent until changed to another extent type based on satisfying a storage request, the another extent type comprising a first type in which the blocks of storage within the extent are exclusively of that first type or a mixed type in which the blocks of storage within the extent are of various types, and wherein the block of storage is to be obtained from a selected extent of the plurality of storage extents; based on obtaining the request, selecting the selected extent from the plurality of storage extents, wherein the selecting comprises searching the plurality of storage extents in a predefined order, which is based on extent type, to select an extent with available space as the selected extent, and wherein based on the selected extent having the extent type of empty, changing the extent type to the requested type of the block of storage; and obtaining the block of storage from the selected extent, said block of storage being of the requested type.