Managing operations on stored data units

A system for managing storage of data units includes a data storage system (106) configured to store multiple data blocks (202A-202C), at least some of the data blocks containing multiple data units, with at least a group of the data blocks being stored contiguously, thereby supporting a first read operation (340) that retrieves data units from at least two adjacent data blocks in the group. The system is configured to perform two or more operations with respect to data units. The operations include: a second read operation (320), different from the first read operation, that retrieves a data unit to be read based at least in part on an address of a data block containing the data unit to be read, and a delete operation (300) that replaces a first data block containing a data unit to be deleted with a second data block that does not contain the deleted data unit.