International Business Machines Corporation

Daniel Edward Poff

Bulent Abali

Peter Anthony Franaszek

James Lee Hafner

Mohammad Banikazemi

Krishnakumar Rao Surugucchi

A set of disks in a plurality of disk arrays are configured to have one or more spare partitions. Upon detecting a faulty disk in a faulty array, the method involves the steps of: (a) migrating data in the faulty array containing the faulty disk to one or more spare partitions; (b) reconfiguring the faulty array to form a new array without the faulty disk; (c) migrating data from one or more spare partitions in the set of disks to the reconfigured new array; (d) monitoring to identify when overall spare capacity falls below a predetermined threshold; and when the predetermined threshold is exceeded, scheduling a service visit for replacement of the failed disks.

Method for providing deferred maintenance on storage subsystems

Disclosed is a method of managing memory to prevent an operating system from writing into user memory space, the method comprising providing a translation look-aside buffer (TLB) for storing TLB entries, each said TLB entry comprising a virtual address of a page in system memory space, a real address of said page, a flag entry for storing a value F indicating whether said page is a user page in said user memory space, providing a space recovery mode register comprising a mode entry for storing a value E indicating whether the system is in a normal mode or in a space recovery mode, said value of E set to said space recovery mode when available free user space fall below a predetermined threshold value, and for each said TLB entry, designating said page in system memory space as read-only when F=0 and E=0. An alternative embodiment is also disclosed wherein no modifications to memory structures are required.

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Mahopac, NY, United States of America

Daniel Edward Poff