Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

Netapp, Inc.

Jeffrey S Werning

Brian Dennis McKean

Bret S Weber

Mohamad H El-Batal

Timothy E Hoglund

Lee Anton Sendelbach

John Dietterich

Techniques for caching results of a read request to a solid state device are disclosed. In some embodiments, the techniques may be realized as a method for caching solid state device read request results comprising receiving, at a solid state device, a data request from a host device communicatively coupled to the solid state device, and retrieving, using a controller of the solid state device, a compressed data chunk from the solid state device in response to the data request. The techniques may further include decompressing the compressed data chunk, returning, to the host device, a block of the data chunk responsive to the data request, and caching one or more additional blocks of the data chunk in a data buffer for subsequent read requests.

System and method for caching solid state device read request results

A method and apparatus for taking a snapshot of a storage system employing a solid state disk (SSD). A plurality of mapping tables in the SSD store data needed to create a one or more point in time snapshots and a current view of the SSD. In response to a write command, the SSD executes its normal write process and updates its mapping tables to indicate the current view of the SSD and additionally retains the original data in a table of pointers to the original data, as the snapshot of an earlier state of the SSD. In the preferred embodiment, the innate ability of SSDs to write data to a new location is used to perform a point-in-time copy with little or no loss in performance in performing the snapshot.

Storage system snapshot assisted by SSD technology

Growing community of inventors

Rochester, MN, United States of America

Jeffrey S Werning