US Patent 12019893 Storage device pool management based on fragmentation levels

Aspects directed towards data storage management are provided. In one aspect, a data storage system receives fragmentation level information from data storage devices, and host data from a host device to be stored in the data storage devices. Based on the received fragmentation level information, a target data storage device is selected from the data storage devices, and the host data is sent to the target data storage device. In another aspect, a data storage device determines threshold conditions that trigger a defragmentation process. For this aspect, a fragmentation level metric indicating a proximity of the data storage device to initiating the defragmentation process is calculated based on the threshold conditions and a current amount of data stored in a non-volatile memory (NVM). The fragmentation level metric is then sent to a storage management device.