The present invention relates to management of a multi-tier storage environment, and more specifically, this invention relates to efficient management of high performance tiers in a multi-tier storage environment.
A file system defines how files are named and manages how they are placed for storage and retrieval. File system functionality may be divided into two components: a user component and a storage component. The user component is responsible for managing files within directories, file path traversals, and user access to files. The storage component of the file system determines how files are stored physically on the storage device.
In addition, a file system may attempt to efficiently place data in different locations according to the importance of the data and how frequently it is accessed. When data is migrated from one physical location to another, the strategic placement of the data may be lost and applications which access the data may have their performance suffer.