Patent ID: 7287121

Claim:
A method for operating a storage volume, comprising: establishing a profile for the storage volume, said profile being established using a predictive algorithm that is a function of at least one of: a predicted read activity that will likely address the volume; a predicted write activity that will likely address the volume; and an amount of data likely to be read or written to the volume; and while accepting and executing a host command for said storage volume: collecting statistical data related to said storage volume, said statistical data including a total number of sectors read and a total number of sectors written, and independently maintaining said collected statistical data for each storage subvolume, each subvolume having a programmable granularity; and analyzing said statistical data to determine whether a performance of said storage volume meets a goal; if said goal is not met, modifying said profile, the statistical data and a current state of said profile to create a new state of said profile; and modifying said storage volume to be consistent with the new state of said profile.