A file is striped across multiple filers, file servers or other devices, to create a sparsely striped multi-component file. Each filer stores one sparse component. In particular, each component physically stores only those stripes allocated to that component. The other stripes are represented as holes....http://www.google.es/patents/US7194579?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatente US7194579 - Sparse multi-component files
