Abstract: A technique for repairing an indirect addressing structure of a file system damaged by corruption of a mid-level mapping (MID) page includes scanning selected leaf pages to identify leaf pages associated with the corrupted MID page, then recreating the MID page by recreating pointers to the identified leaf pages. The scanning includes (1) based on an association of groups of leaf pages with corresponding sets of families of storage objects, scanning the leaf pages of only those groups of leaf pages associated with the family of storage objects for the corrupted MID page. The scanning further includes (2) performing a two-pass process including first identifying all leaf pages for the logical offset range of the corrupted MID page and then pruning those identified leaf pages that are reachable via non-corrupted MID pages, yielding the leaf pages for the corrupted MID page only, usable to recreate the corrupted MID page.

Abstract: Techniques for handling pattern identifiers in a data storage system. By replacing a block pointer with a pattern identifier, the techniques can identify a data block (or an indirect data block) as a bad block, without resorting to the use of a separate flag or bad block (BB) bit in per-block metadata (e.g., a mapping pointer) of the data block. The techniques can also avoid waste of valuable metadata space by using pattern identifiers at various levels of a mapping tree, leveraging pointer granularity at lower levels, mid-levels, and progressively higher levels of the mapping tree.

Abstract: Metadata formatting techniques may include: receiving a request to allocate M blocks of a file system; selecting for allocation, using an allocation bitmap, M free blocks of the file system, wherein the M free blocks have corresponding block metadata (BMD) structures included in a BMD group stored in a first block of physical storage; determining whether the BMD group is stored in cache; determining, using the allocation bitmap, whether each BMD structure of the BMD group is unallocated; and responsive to determining the BMD group is not stored in cache and that each BMD structure of the BMD group is unallocated, performing first processing initializing the corresponding BMD structures for the M free blocks to denote the M free blocks are allocated. The first processing may include storing in the cache initialized versions of the corresponding BMD structures for the M free blocks.

Abstract: A method is used in managing inline data compression in storage systems. A request is received to update data of a data object previously stored in an allocation unit of a segment in a storage system. The segment comprises of a set of allocation units in a compressed format. A determination is made as to whether the updated data of the data object can be stored in the compressed format in the allocation unit of the segment. Based on the determination, the updated data is written in the compressed format to the allocation unit of the segment.

Abstract: A method is used in managing inline data compression in storage systems. A request is received to update data of a data object previously stored in an allocation unit of a segment in a storage system. The segment comprises of a set of allocation units in a compressed format. A determination is made as to whether the updated data of the data object can be stored in the compressed format in the allocation unit of the segment. Based on the determination, a free allocation unit is selected from a list of free allocation units managed by the storage system for writing the updated data in the compressed format to the free allocation unit.

Abstract: Described are techniques for creating windows of free blocks in a file system selected in accordance with trigger conditions. A first slice is selected, in accordance with slice selection criteria, from a plurality of slices of storage provisioned for use by the file system. First processing is performed on the first slice that creates at least one window of free blocks in the first slice for use by the file system. It is determined, in accordance with termination criteria, whether to process one or more additional slices of the file system to create additional windows of free blocks for use by the file system. Such processing to create free windows may be subject to various limits of resource consumption.

Abstract: A technique for managing block allocation in data storage systems involve providing multiple ranges of contiguous logical addresses (logical windows) in a logical address space of a file and allocating contiguous ranges of physical addresses (physical windows) in a file system to respective logical windows in response to requests to write data to logical addresses within the logical windows. When allocating blocks from one or more streams, each logical window to which writes are directed is mapped to a respective physical window, and each logical address in the logical window is mapped to a physical address in the physical window.