A method includes compressing input data to form compressed data and comparing a size of the compressed data to a maximum allowed size determined from a fixed sector size for a lower tier of the multi-tier storage system and a minimum pad length for a pad that is stored in the same sector as the compressed data when the compressed data is migrated to the lower tier. When the size of the compressed data is greater than the maximum allowed size, the input data is stored instead of the compressed data in an upper tier of the multi-tier storage system.