An object of the present invention is to suppress fragmentation occurring
due to repeated storing and deleting small capacity file data, while
effectively storing large capacity real time file data. To achieve this
object, according to the present invention, a block relying on a physical
storage area, and a continuous plurality of the blocks, constitute a
unit. The unit is set at a capacity at which real time processing is
guaranteed. Image data or other such real time file data is stored with
in units. Further, in a case of data processed in non-real time, the data
is stored in blocks. A unit attribute table for managing the unit is
arranged, and based on this unit attribute table, a determination is made
as to whether or not the unit can be used at the time of storage.