METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMPROVING UPDATE PERFORMANCE OF NON-UNIFORM ACCESS TIME PERSISTENT STORAGE MEDIA

A high volume storage system is described which continuously remaps where data is stored. The remapping is designed so that writing occurs on an optimum speed basis tuned to the storage system being utilized, e.g., the writes occur in substantially sequential disk storage locations to the extent possible. By remapping data on a substantially continuous basis writes advantageously occur nearer the sequential performance limits of the particular drive or devices being utilized. A methodology is described which improves the external performance of a random access storage system, such as a RAID array. The illustrative embodiments introduce a continuous, optimized dynamic reorganization of the storage media that converts concurrent updates from one or more logical volumes to one or more sequential streams, as appropriate to the number of physical devices and channels over which the updates can be dispersed and thereby minimize the number of seek operations necessary on each physical device.