Patent ID: 8606822

Claim:
A method to optimize use of available storage capacity of a plurality of data storage media, comprising: providing a data storage system comprising (M) magnetic tape data storage media each comprising a plurality of blockids, wherein each magnetic tape data storage medium comprises an available storage capacity, wherein (M) is greater than or equal to 2; receiving from a host computer comprising a tape management system (TMS), and in communication with said data storage system, source data comprising a plurality of segments; determining by said TMS a quantum of data to store; selecting by said TMS an (i)th a magnetic tape data storage medium having a storage capacity substantially equal to said quantum of data, wherein (i) is greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to (M); selecting by said TMS a tape storage drive disposed in said data storage system; causing by said TMS said selected tape storage drive to write said source data to said selected magnetic tape data storage medium; operative if said quantum of data to store is not substantially equal to an (i)th available storage capacity, determining if said quantum of data is less than an (i)th available storage capacity; operative if the quantum of data to store is less than an (i)th available storage capacity, writing said source data to an (i)th magnetic tape data storage medium; updating a segment database with a blockid and storage location for each segment of source data written to said (i)th magnetic tape data storage medium; and updating a magnetic tape data storage medium database to recite an updated (i)th storage capacity; operative if said quantum of data to store is not less than an (i)th available storage capacity, determining if said quantum of data is substantially equal to an aggregate available storage capacity for (N) of said (M) inventoried magnetic tape storage media, wherein (N) is less than or equal to (M); operative if said quantum of data is substantially equal to an aggregate available storage capacity for (N) of said (M) inventoried magnetic tape storage media, writing said source data to said (N) magnetic tape data storage media; updating a segment database with a blockid and storage location for each segment of source data written to said (N) magnetic tape data storage media; and updating a magnetic tape data storage medium database to recite an updated storage capacity for each of said (N) magnetic tape data storage media.