5. The method of claim 1, wherein said method further comprises the steps of: reading said body of metadata; and generating a list of affected partitions, wherein said affected partitions are partitions that will be affected by said operation.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein said method further comprises the steps of: reading said body of metadata; and generating a list of affected partitions, wherein said affected partitions are partitions that will be affected by said operation. 6. The method of claim 5 wherein: said step of acquiring said data lock comprises the step of acquiring an exclusive data lock on said one or more partitions that belong to said list of affected partitions; and said step of releasing said data lock comprises the step of releasing said exclusive data lock on said one or more partitions that belong to said list of affected partitions.