Hitachi, Ltd.

Other

Ikuya Yagisawa

Naoto Matsunami

Akihiro Mannen

Masayuki Yamamoto

Azuma Kano

Koji Nagata

Shoji Kodama

Yasuyuki Mimatsu

Kenichi Takamoto

Takuji Ogawa

Katsuo Mogi

Akira Yamamoto

Yasunori Kaneda

Akira Nishimoto

Jun Matsumoto

Takashi Oeda

Masahiro Arai

Yoichi Mizuno

Kenji Muraoka

Yoshifumi Zimoto

Hiroshi Arakawa

Yusuke Nonaka

Akio Nakajima

Hideki Kamimaki

Satoshi Yagi

Masatoshi Ichikawa

Naoki Higashijima

Toshio Nakano

Masahiko Sato

Mikio Fukuoka

Yutaka Nakagawa

Xiaoming Jiang

Takeki Okamoto

Yoshihiro Oikawa

Kotaro Muramatsu

Minoru Yoshida

Manabu Kitamura

Yoshiki Kano

Hitoshi Akiyama

Kiyoshi Honda

Bunitsu Ando

Daisuke Mitsutake

Atsushi Ishikawa

Shinichi Nakayama

Tetsuya Shirogane

Seiki Morita

Yoshifumi Mimata

Jin Choi

Yoshinori Tsuneda

Masahiro Takano

Takashi Itoyama

Shohei Abe

Xiao Ming Jiang

Daisuke Mitsutaka

Masayuki Kan

Yuta Sekino

This storage controller providing a volume for storing data transmitted from a host system includes a management unit for managing the data written in the volume with a first block area, or a second block area in the first block area which is smaller than the first block area; a snapshot acquisition unit for acquiring a snapshot of the volume at a prescribed timing; and a transfer unit for transferring the data of the volume acquired with the snapshot of the snapshot acquisition unit to an external device with the first block area or the second block area.

Storage controller and data management method

In a storage system for performing data backup using a battery during blackout, when the blackout continues for a long time, problems such as the loss of volatile memory data due to the consumption of battery capacity and the difference in recovery time between controller units after power recovery occur during restarting of the system. The present invention solves the problems by selecting (a1) battery backup or (a2) saving of data in a nonvolatile device based on the battery capacity or setting of modes, and selecting (b1) inhibiting restart of the system or (b2) storing of data in the volatile memory to a nonvolatile memory means and performing access via write-through based on the remaining capacity of the battery when restarting the system after power recovery. Further, the system enables to increase and decrease the volatile memory capacity of the write area and mutually confirms synchronization of controller units and contents of volatile memories. Thereby, the system enables to prevent data loss and inconsistency of data.

Storage system, data backup method, and system restarting method of a storage system incorporating volatile and nonvolatile memory devices

Deterioration of performance due to diagnosis processing performed when a failure occurs is prevented. A storage apparatusincludes a controllerA and a plurality of expandersA,A coupled to the controllerA to form a first system, and includes a controllerB and a plurality of expandersB,B coupled to the controllerB to form a second system. The controllerA accesses the storage drivethrough the expandersA,A, and the second controllerB accesses the storage drive through the expandersB,B. In the storage apparatus, the controllerA stores a maximum number (concurrently-executable maximum number) of communication portsthat are concurrently diagnosable in the first system, and repeatedly executes a process of selecting the communication portsnot exceeding the concurrently-executable maximum number and a process of causing the expandersA,A to diagnose the selected communication ports

Storage apparatus and method of controlling the same

This storage system supplies, to a plurality of computers, a plurality of duplicate volumes (CVOLs) (corresponding to duplicates of a master volume (MVOL) upon which is stored an electronic object (EO) that is common to the plurality of computers). Both the MVOL and the CVOLS are virtual logical volumes that follow sync provisioning. In the plurality of CVOLs, a plurality of physical regions that are allocated to the MVOL (i.e. regions in which the electronic object is stored) (PAs) are allocated. A storage, when writing an electronic module (EM) to which the EO is applied to the first CVOL, copies data within a first PA that is allocated to the virtual region (VA) that is the write destination to a second PA, writes the EM to the second PA, and moreover allocates the second PA to a VA of the write destination, instead of the first PA. And the storage allocates the second PA to a VA within the second CVOL corresponding to the VA of the write destination, instead of the PA that is allocated to that VA.

Storage system storing electronic modules applied to electronic objects common to several computers, and storage control method for the same

The present invention makes is possible to appropriately set the power saving control of the storage device from the management device of the storage device. In addition, the storage device executes control of the power saving for the magnetic disk device after ensuring consistency between an instruction from the administrator and the operating state of the magnetic disk device in the storage device.

Storage system with storage medium package power control

The computer system of the present invention has a plurality of SAS target devices, an SAS initiator device, and a service delivery subsystem that is connected to each SAS target device by means of a physical link that is physical wiring and connected to the SAS initiator device by means of a wide link constituted by a plurality of physical links. The SAS initiator device controls how many physical links in the wide link are allocated to a particular SAS target device, whereby access from the SAS initiator device to the SAS target device is made via a physical link that is allocated to the SAS target device and is not made via a physical link that is not allocated to the SAS target device.

Computer system for controlling allocation of physical links and method thereof

A storage device includes a plurality of expanders connected to a disk device and a controller unit for controlling the expanders. The disk device stores data transmitted from a host device. The controller determines whether, when download data is received from a predetermined terminal to update firmware of an expander, it is necessary to initialize a corresponding expander after downloading the download data by the expander, transmits determined initialization determining information determined to the terminal, transmits the download data to the corresponding expander, and instructs the corresponding expander to update the firmware at a timing for updating the firmware, which is determined by the terminal based on the initialization determining information.

Storage device and method of instructing to update firmware

The storage system includes a first controller adapted to transfer/receive data to/from a host computer and to receive/transfer data from/to first type drive units via a first type interface of the first controller; a second controller adapted to transfer/receive data to/from the host computer and/or another host computer and to receive/transfer data from/to the first type drive units via a first type interface of the second controller, the first type drive units each having a converter and a first type drive, the converter converting between a first type protocol and a second type protocol, the first type drive having a second type interface and storing data converted to the second type protocol by the converter; and an expansion housing including the first type drive units. Each of the first type drive units are coupled to both the first and second controllers.

Storage system having plural controllers and an expansion housing with drive units

The storage system includes a disk controller for receiving write commands from a computer, and a plurality of disk devices in which data is written in accordance with the control of the disk controller. The size of the first block which constitutes the data unit handled in the execution of the input/output processing of the data in accordance with the write command by the disk controller is different from the size of the second block which constitutes the data unit handled in the execution of the input/output processing of data by the plurality of disk devices. The disk controller issues an instruction for the writing of data to the disk devices using a third block unit of a size corresponding to a common multiple of the size of the first block and the size of the second block.

Storage system

The storage system includes a plurality of first disk devices, a plurality of second disk devices, in which a lifetime of the plurality of second disk devices is different from a lifetime of the plurality of first disk devices, and a controller coupled to the plurality of first disk devices and the plurality of second disk devices. The controller configures a first logical unit by the plurality of first disk devices and a second logical unit by the plurality of second disk devices, provides the first and the second logical units to a host computer, and manages a first remaining available time of the first logical unit and a second remaining available time of the second logical unit, on logical unit basis.

Storage system for holding a remaining available lifetime of a logical storage region

A data element that is identical to a part of a plurality of data elements stored in a logical storage device (LU hereinbelow) is stored in a storage area (pool hereinbelow) separate from the LU. A first PDEV (physical storage device) that stores the data element stored in the LU may be placed in a power saving state while the storage system is operating (in periods when a read command can be received), and a second PDEV which stores the data element stored in the pool is not placed in a power saving state during operation. When the storage system receives a read command which is received from the host apparatus, and if the first PDEV is in the power saving state and a data element identical to the data element which is the target of the read command is stored in the pool, the storage system reads the identical data element from the pool without canceling the power saving state of the first PDEV, and sends the read data element to the host apparatus.

Storage system having power saving function

A controller transmits a second protocol command to a target from among one or more switch devices. The second protocol command is a command which conforms to a second protocol type in which a connection established for transmitting a command to the target is broken during processing of the command by the target, and is defined as a command corresponding to a first protocol command, which is a command conforming to a first protocol type in which the connection remains established during processing of the command by the target.

Data storage system using multiple communication protocols

A storage control apparatus of the present invention reduces the frequency of disk drive failures. An error management part manages the number of times errors occur in respective disk drives. A disk drive in which the number of errors meets or exceeds a threshold value is selected as a disk drive to be restarted. A restart control part commences difference management prior to restarting the disk drive targeted for restart. A difference management part manages parity group-related update locations using a difference bitmap. After commencing difference management, the restart control part restarts the disk drive in which the error was detected. This makes it possible to resolve an error caused by a firmware hangup or the like.

Storage control apparatus and failure recovery method for storage control apparatus

Computer system for controlling allocation of physical  links and method thereof

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Ikuya Yagisawa