Patent ID: 8775732

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving instructions, wherein the instructions comprise instructions regarding data access statistics, and the instructions are received from a first source; determining whether the data access statistics should be included or excluded from a list of data access statistics, wherein the determining is performed by a disk array, and the determining is based on the instructions received from the first source; in response to determining that the data access statistics should be included in the list of data access statistics, including the data access statistics in the list of data access statistics, wherein the including is performed if the data access statistics comprise data access statistics previously undetected by the disk array; in response to determining that the data access statistics should be excluded from the list of data access statistics, excluding the data access statistics from the list of data access statistics, wherein the excluding is performed if the data access statistics comprise data access statistics corresponding to background maintenance operations; performing a frequency analysis using the list of data access statistics, wherein the frequency analysis is performed by the disk array, and the disk array is in communication with the first source; and assigning data to storage blocks according to results of the frequency analysis, wherein the storage blocks are within the disk array.