Patent ID: 8032492

Claim:
A method of establishing a plurality of storage areas, comprising: associating each of a first plurality of storage areas of a first type that contain sections of data with corresponding ones of a second plurality of storage areas of a second type having pointers to one of: a section of a corresponding first storage area and a section of a third storage area of the first storage type, the third storage area being separate from the first storage area and the second storage type containing no sections of data, wherein initially none of the second plurality of storage areas is available for accessing data corresponding thereto and wherein all of the storage areas are provided in a single storage device; and after associating all of the first and second plurality of storage areas, activating the second plurality of storage areas to make the second plurality of storage areas available for accessing data, wherein, in response to an initial write to the first storage area, data is copied from the first storage area to the third storage area prior to the write and a corresponding pointer of the second storage area is made to point to the data at the third storage area.