It has been impossible in prior art to copy every piece of data that is
stored in a virtual volume. A management computer of this invention
receives a copy request that designates a real storage area as a copy
source, selects a virtual storage area that is associated with plural
real storage areas as a copy destination virtual storage area, and judges
whether or not a copy source virtual storage area and the copy
destination virtual storage area are allocated to real storage areas.
Based on a result of the judging, the management computer gives an
instruction to copy data that is stored in the copy source real storage
area to a copy destination real storage area, and keeps information about
a replication relation between the copy source real storage area and the
copy destination real storage area on which the data copy has been
performed.