Patent ID: 8862833

Claim:
A method of storing one or more volumes of data in a data storage system, including one or more data storage containers, provided by data storage hardware, the one or more data storage containers being thin-provisioned to provide virtual data storage capacity which is greater than a real data storage capacity of the data storage hardware, wherein the method includes: identify placement of the one or more volumes of data within the data storage system for fulfilling one or more corresponding storage capacity provisional requests; determining a real data storage capacity of the data storage system for accommodating a requested real size of data to be stored on the one or more new volumes; determining virtual data storage capacity of the data storage system for accommodating a requested size of data to be stored on the one or more new volumes; determining over-allocation information relating to the one or more data storage containers; determining extrapolated future anticipated use of the one or more containers of the data storage system from historical data storage use information; identifying the one or more containers of the data storage system for the one or more new volumes and generating a list of one or more candidate data storage containers by: finding one or more containers which have sufficient virtual data storage capacity for the one or more new volumes, finding one or more containers which have sufficient real data storage capacity or the one or more new volumes, finding one or more containers which are below their over-allocation capacity with regard to thin partitioning, and finding one or more containers in respect to the one or more containers whose data storage utilization does not exceed thresholds and best practice values; and selecting the one or more candidate data storage containers on the basis of information from the determining the real data storage capacity, over-allocation information, and the extrapolated future anticipated use.