Patent ID: 8862560

Claim:
In a storage processor of a data storage system having a fixed storage capacity shared between a plurality of data storage units, a method comprising: performing a Compression-related operation on a data storage unit of the plurality of data storage units using a free pool of storage space, associated with the fixed storage capacity, as a swap space for the Compression-related operation; detecting a size of the free pool, the size of the free pool representing unallocated storage space of the data storage system; comparing the size of the free pool with a restricted threshold; and if the size of the free pool falls below the restricted threshold, then pausing the Compression-related operation on the data storage unit, otherwise, continuing to perform the Compression-related operation on the data storage unit; wherein each of the data storage units and the free pool are all fully provisioned from non-volatile storage provided by the data storage system; wherein each of the plurality of data storage units is a thinly-provisioned logical disk, a size of each thinly-provisioned logical disk dynamically varying based on the contents of that thinly-provisioned logical disk; wherein performing the Compression-related operation on the data storage unit comprises performing a decompression operation on the data storage unit to expand the size of the data storage unit from a compressed state; wherein the method further comprises: in response to pausing, receiving a user override command; and in response to receiving the user override command, resuming the decompression operation.