Patent ID: 7281111

Claim:
A method of facilitating access to a storage system, the method comprising: providing multiple computers access to multiple volumes in the storage system; maintaining parameters for the multiple volumes, the parameters defining attributes of the multiple volumes; utilizing a volume interface to provide at least one computer access to a given volume in the storage system, the storage system including multiple storage devices for storing the given volume; setting parameters in the volume interface to define attributes associated with the given volume; while the given volume is mounted by the at least one computer, reconfiguring the given volume; via the volume interface, providing the at least one computer access to the reconfigured volume; for a first volume of the multiple volumes: i) selecting a size associated with the first volume, the size associated with the first volume reflecting an actual amount of storage associated with the first volume; and for a second volume of the multiple volumes: i) selecting a size associated with the second volume, the size associated with the second volume being different than an amount of storage space actually associated with the second volume.