Network Appliance, Inc.

Netapp, Inc.

Lsi Corporation

Microsemi Storage Solutions (u.s.), Inc.

Microsemi Solutions (us), Inc.

Anthony Frank Aiello

Radek Aster

George Y Kong

Randal Thelen

Robert W Horst

Steven Robert Kleiman

Ross John Stenfort

John T Lloyd

Robert Caldwell

Kyquang Son

Robert L Weisickle

Methods, devices and systems are provided for making a shingled magnetic recording (SMR) hard disk drive operate with similar random access characteristics of a conventional hard drive despite the SMR disk having strict sequential write requirements. A virtual space manager manages a virtual address space, which is visible to a host system, and maps virtual addresses to logical addresses on the SMR disk. A logical space manager controls the placement of data on the SMR disk and ensures that writes to the disk comply with the sequential write requirements. The disk is subdivided into a plurality of stripes each comprising one or more blocks. When a block located within a stripe is to be rewritten with new data, the entire stripe is read from the SMR disk into a memory of the system, the stripe is modified in the memory to replace the previous data stored in the block with the new data, and the modified stripe is written to a new, next available stripe on the disk.

Method and system for handling random access write requests for a shingled magnetic recording hard disk drive

A data protection system having a host, a solid-state drive ('SSD') array comprising at least three non-volatile memory express ('NVMe') drives, each NVMe drive comprising a buffer, and a peripheral component interconnect express (&#x201c;PCIe&#x201d;) data bus interfacing the host and the NVMe drives. The NVMe drives are implemented with commands for implementing a RAID volume in the SSD array, wherein the commands are operable to perform RAID operations at the NVMe drives using the buffers of the NVMe drives.

Raid enabled NVME device

A system and method for distributing enclosure services information is provided. A plurality of storage systems that are operatively interconnected with one or more intermediate networking devices and/or disk shelves are modified to include a target device driver module that is adapted to receive and process target commands from other storage systems to enable the sharing and retrieval of SES information from a storage shelf's master storage system.

System and method for distributing enclosure services data to coordinate shared storage

In one embodiment of the present invention, a memory system is disclosed to include at least one initiator, a SATA device, and an improved bridge device configured to facilitate communication between the at least one initiator and the SATA device and having at least one input port and operative to receive information through the input port(s) from the initiators, the improved bridge device for processing a notification event wherein notification is sent to the at least one initiators during a notification event, and for performing an action, based on a an event, thereby facilitating ease of communication between the initiator and the SATA device.

Initiator notification method and apparatus

The present invention provides a novel coordinated shared storage architecture that permits the amortization of cost of the spares over any number of the storage systems and enables improvements to a number of storage system operations. The coordinated shared storage architecture comprises a plurality of storage systems disk shelves via a plurality of intermediate network devices, such as hubs. Each storage system includes a storage operating system having a target device driver module. The target device driver module permits the storage system to function as a SCSI target and thereby receive and process commands directed to it from other storage systems.

Coordinated shared storage architecture

A system and method enables a file server, to support multi path input/output operations for Fibre Channel devices. Upon each Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop initialization event generated, the system and method updates a path and device instance to track multiple paths to a given device. While the file server is attempting input/output operations, the failure of a given path can be corrected by the use of another path associated with a given device. The data structures generated by the low levels of the storage operating system are exposed for use by upper level services for routing a storage device identification purposes.

System and method for multipath I/O support for fibre channel devices

A method and apparatus to manage storage devices has been disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes logically partitioning each of a number of storage devices in a networked data storage system into segments and managing the segments in response to how often each of the storage devices is accessed. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Method and apparatus to manage storage devices

A method and apparatus to offload operations has been disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes configuring a number of storage devices in a networked storage system according to a redundancy scheme using a storage server in the networked storage system, providing information on a configuration of the storage devices from the storage server to an offload engine coupled to the storage server, and the storage server directing the offload engine to perform operations on the storage devices, wherein the storage devices are presented transparently to the storage server via the offload engine. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Method and apparatus to offload operations in a networked storage system

A system and method for emulating conventional block appended checksums on storage devices that generally do not support such checksums in a block is provided. A grouping of data sectors with one or more checksum sectors is generated. This grouping is mapped to/from a file system data structure associated with a traditional block appended checksum disk drive.

System and method for emulating block appended checksums on storage devices by sector stealing

The invention provides a method and system for routing or switching file system requests in a mass storage system. The mass storage system includes multiple storage devices coupled using fiber channel to a routing or switching device disposed internally within each shelf of mass storage devices in the mass storage system, and coupled directly to each individual mass storage device in that shelf. The switching device receives requests, identifies an individual target storage device for each such request, and sends each such request to its designated target storage device. The switching device also receives responses to such requests from each individual storage device within the shelf, and sends those responses from the storage device to an external medium with which the response can be delivered to the original requester. One advantage of the switching device is that the switching device can maintain communication bandwidth between the mass storage devices and external devices approximately equal to the communication bandwidth of a single fiber channel times the number of point-to-point connections.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Anthony Frank Aiello