3ware, Inc.

Other

James Arthur McDonald

Mitchell Allen Altman

John Peter Herz

William Edward Smith, Iii

Robert W Horst

Rod S Thompson

William Alessi

Richard J Biskup

Brian Davis

A data management device and library are provided for organizing, holding, and providing electrical connectivity to multiple memory cards. The data management device can comprise a device body, a plurality of sockets to accommodate the data storage media, an electrical connector, and a power management circuit. Data can be retrieved from or transferred to the selected memory cards utilizing the device. The data management library can be utilized to interconnect multiple devices and can be daisy chained to other libraries.

Memory card magazine system

The present invention is related to methods and apparatus that can enhance the reliability of a hard drive by providing a built-in error check in the drive. Conventional hard drives can erroneously seek to an incorrect location on a platter of the hard drive. The erroneous seek corrupts the data stream and is difficult to detect and correct. Embodiments of the present invention can detect a logical block address assigned to a portion of the platter of the hard drive and thereby detect when an erroneous seek has occurred. Upon detection of an error, one embodiment of the present invention can further take corrective action to read from the correct portion of the platter.

Disk drive data protection using clusters containing error detection sectors

The present invention is related to methods and systems for providing different stripe sizes for different zones for at least a first of a plurality of mirrored drives to improve data rates. The first drive has a plurality of zones. In one embodiment, a first stripe size is selected for a first zone, and a second stripe size is selected for a second zone. The said second stripe size is different than said first stripe size.

Methods and systems for mirrored disk arrays

The present invention is related to methods and systems for improving the read performance of a drive array, such as a RAID array, having an &ldquo;n&rdquo; number of drives so that the read performance is greater than (n&minus;1) times that of an independent single drive. Formatting information for each of at least three drives is received. A first parity block size for use with corresponding first zones of the at least three drives is selected. A second parity block size different than the first parity block size is selected for use with corresponding second zones of the at least three drives. The first and the second parity block sizes are selected to increase the read performance from the drive array based on at least a portion of the formatting information.

Methods and systems for selecting block sizes for use with disk arrays

A disk array system comprises a plurality of automated controllers, each of which implements a host side of a standard ATA interface protocol within automated circuitry to control a respective disk drive. Each automated controller preferably includes a command buffer for storing disk drive commands to be executed by a respective ATA drive, and a data buffer that stores I/O data being transferred to or from the ATA disk drive. In a preferred embodiment, the automated controllers are connected by a control bus to a microcontroller that dispatches disk drive commands to the automated controllers in response to I/O requests from a host computer, and are also connected by a second bus to an automated processor. The automated processor transfers I/O data between the automated controllers/ATA disk drives and a host computer, and tracks the completion statuses of pending I/O requests.

Disk array system with controllers that automate host side of ATA interface

A controller and an associated method, which may be embodied within a disk array system, are disclosed for verifying, the integrity of command data written to a disk drive (preferably an Advanced Technology Attachment or ATA drive) before such command data is used to execute a command. The controller, which may be implemented in automated hardware or firmware residing external to the disk drive, initially writes the command data to the disk drive, and then reads back and verifies this data prior to initiating execution of the command. If the written-out and read-back command data are consistent, the controller initiates execution of the command; otherwise, the controller enters into an error state that prevents the potentially corrupt command data from being used by the disk drive. The controller may also read a status code from the disk drive more than once to reduce the likelihood of misread status information.

Disk array system, controller, and method for verifying command data written to disk drives

The present invention is related to methods and systems for accessing multimedia data stored on a disk array to ensure that the transfer rate does not fall below a selected minimum transfer rate independent of where the multimedia data is stored on the disk array. In one embodiment, the sizes of blocks accessed are varied and the direction of access is selected to enhance read performance. A plurality of blocks are read whose sizes vary linearly as data is being read from a first disk in a backward direction, from an inner diameter side of the first disk, towards an outer diameter of the first disk. Blocks are read from a second disk in a forward direction, towards an inner diameter of the second disk.

Methods and systems for accessing disks using forward and reverse seeks

The present invention is related to methods and systems for reducing head movements during accesses to drives within a drive array by dynamically selecting which one of a first drive and a second drive is to be used to read data stored within a first logical address range. A first set of data is stored in both the first drive and the second drive. The logical block addresses accessed by at least a portion of read operations are monitored. The first drive is designated as a data source for data stored on both the first drive and the second drive in the first logical address range. The second drive is designated as a data source for data stored on both the first drive and the second drive outside the first logical address range. The designation of drives is performed at least partly in response to the monitoring act.

Methods and systems for dynamically distributing disk array data accesses

A high performance RAID system for a PC comprises a controller card which controls an array of ATA disk drives. The controller card includes an array of automated disk drive controllers, each of which controls one respective disk drive. The disk drive controllers are connected to a microcontroller by a control bus and are connected to an automated coprocessor by a packet-switched bus. The coprocessor accesses system memory and a local buffer. In operation, the disk drive controllers respond to controller commands from the microcontroller by accessing their respective disk drives, and by sending packets to the coprocessor over the packet-switched bus. The packets carry I/O data (in both directions, with the coprocessor filling-in packet payloads on I/O writes), and carry transfer commands and target addresses that are used by the coprocessor to access the buffer and system memory. The packets also carry special completion values (generated by the microcontroller) and I/O request identifiers that are processed by a logic circuit of the coprocessor to detect the completion of processing of each I/O request. The coprocessor grants the packet-switched bus to the disk drive controllers using a round robin arbitration protocol which guarantees a minimum I/O bandwidth to each disk drive. This minimum I/O bandwidth is preferably greater than the sustained transfer rate of each disk drive, so that all drives of the array can operate at the sustained transfer rate without the formation of a bottleneck.

Disk array controller, and components thereof, for use with ATA disk drives

A high-performance RAID system for a PC comprises a controller card which controls an array of ATA disk drives. The controller card includes an array of automated disk drive controllers, each of which controls one respective disk drive. The disk drive controllers are connected to a microcontroller by a control bus and are connected to an automated coprocessor by a packet-switched bus. The coprocessor accesses system memory and a local buffer. In operation, the disk drive controllers respond to controller commands from the microcontroller by accessing their respective disk drives, and by sending packets to the coprocessor over the packet-switched bus. The packets carry I/O data (in both directions, with the coprocessor filling-in packet payloads on I/O writes), and carry transfer commands and target addresses that are used by the coprocessor to access the buffer and system memory. The packets also carry special completion values (generated by the microcontroller) and I/O request identifiers that are processed by a logic circuit of the coprocessor to detect the completion of processing of each I/O request. The coprocessor grants the packet-switched bus to the disk drive controllers using a round robin arbitration protocol which guarantees a minimum I/O bandwidth to each disk drive. This minimum I/O bandwidth is preferably greater than the sustained transfer rate of each disk drive, so that all drives of the array can operate at the sustained transfer rate without the formation of a bottleneck.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

James Arthur McDonald