Fusion-io, Inc.

Fusion-10, Inc

Intelligent Intellectual Property Holdings 2 LLC

Longitude Enterprise Flash S.a.r.l.

Unification Technologies, LLC

Sandisk Technologies Inc.

Joshua Aune

David Flynn

Jonathan Thatcher

John Strasser

Kevin Vigor

Jeremy David Fillingim

Bill Inskeep

Michael Zappe

David Atkisson

Robert Barry Wood

John Walker

Bert Lagerstedt

John B Thatcher

Stephan Uphoff

Kevin B Vigor

In various embodiments, an apparatus, system, and method may increase data integrity in a redundant storage system. In one embodiment, a request is received for data stored at a storage system having a plurality of storage elements, where one or more of the plurality of storage elements include parity information. A determination is made that one of the plurality of storage elements is unavailable, the unavailable storage element being a functional storage element and including at least a portion of the data. Responsive to the determination, the data is reconstructed based on at least a portion of the parity information and data from one or more of the plurality of storage elements other than the unavailable storage element; a response is provided to the request such that the response includes the reconstructed data.

Apparatus, system, and method to increase data integrity in a redundant storage system

Apparatuses, systems, and methods are disclosed for reconfiguring an array of storage elements. A storage element error module is configured to determine that one or more storage elements in an array of storage elements are in error. An array of storage elements stores a first ECC block and first parity data generated from the first ECC block. A data reconfiguration module is configured to generate a second ECC block comprising at least a portion of data of a first ECC block. A new configuration storage module is configured to store a second ECC block and associated second parity data on fewer storage elements than a number of storage elements in an array.

Apparatus, system, and method for reconfiguring an array of storage elements

Methods, storage controllers, and systems for grouping data stored on an array of solid-state storage elements are described. One method includes sequentially writing user data to an append point at a head of a log stored in an array of solid-state storage elements. The user data is stored in a plurality of logical erase blocks of the array. The method further includes selecting partially invalidated logical erase blocks of the array based on a characteristic for the partially invalidated logical erase blocks and arranging valid portions of the selected partially invalidated logical erase blocks into groups based on the characteristic. The method further includes writing the groups of valid portions to the log.

Apparatus, system, and method for grouping data stored on an array of solid-state storage elements

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for testing physical regions in a solid-state storage device. The method includes defining a physical storage region on solid-state storage media of a solid-state storage device. The physical storage region includes a subset of storage capacity of the solid-state storage media. The method includes implementing the physical storage region definition on a storage controller such that memory operations are bounded to the physical storage region. The method includes testing wear of solid-state storage media associated with the physical storage region using memory operations bounded to the physical storage region.

Apparatus, system, and method for testing physical regions in a solid-state storage device

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for caching data on a solid-state storage device. The solid-state storage device maintains metadata pertaining to cache operations performed on the solid-state storage device, as well as storage operations of the solid-state storage device. The metadata indicates what data in the cache is valid, as well as information about what data in the nonvolatile cache has been stored in a backing store. A backup engine works through units in the nonvolatile cache device and backs up the valid data to the backing store. During grooming operations, the groomer determines whether the data is valid and whether the data is discardable. Data that is both valid and discardable may be removed during the grooming operation. The groomer may also determine whether the data is cold in determining whether to remove the data from the cache device. The cache device may present to clients a logical space that is the same size as the backing store. The cache device may be transparent to the clients.

Apparatus, system, and method for caching data on a solid-state storage device

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for reconfiguring an array of solid-state storage elements. The method includes determining that one or more storage elements are unavailable to store data. The storage elements are configured in an array of N storage elements that each store a portion of a first ECC chunk and P storage elements that store first parity data corresponding to the first ECC chunk. The method includes generating a second ECC chunk comprising at least a portion of the data of the first ECC chunk. The method includes storing the second ECC chunk and associated second parity data across (N+P)&#x2212;Z storage elements where 1&#x2266;Z&#x2266;P.

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for caching data. A storage request module detects an input/output ('I/O') request for a storage device cached by solid-state storage media of a cache. A direct mapping module references a single mapping structure to determine that the cache comprises data of the I/O request. The single mapping structure maps each logical block address of the storage device directly to a logical block address of the cache. The single mapping structure maintains a fully associative relationship between logical block addresses of the storage device and physical storage addresses on the solid-state storage media. A cache fulfillment module satisfies the I/O request using the cache in response to the direct mapping module determining that the cache comprises at least one data block of the I/O request.

Apparatus, system, and method for caching data

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for bad block remapping. A bad block identifier module identifies one or more data blocks on a solid-state storage element as bad blocks. A log update module writes at least a location of each bad block identified by the bad block identifier module into each of two or more redundant bad block logs. A bad block mapping module accesses at least one bad block log during a start-up operation to create in memory a bad block map. The bad block map includes a mapping between the bad block locations in the bad block log and a corresponding location of a replacement block for each bad block location. Data is stored in each replacement block instead of the corresponding bad block. The bad block mapping module creates the bad block map using one of a replacement block location and a bad block mapping algorithm.

Apparatus, system, and method for bad block remapping

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for managing data storage. The method includes determining that an error correcting code (ECC) block comprises uncorrectable errors. The ECC block is stored across a plurality of memory devices. The method includes iteratively substituting replacement data, within data of the ECC block, for individual memory devices of the plurality of memory devices to form substitute ECC blocks until one of the substitute ECC blocks is correctable using the error correcting code for the ECC block. The method includes providing corrected data from the correctable one of the substitute ECC blocks.

Apparatus, system, and method for managing data storage

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for reconfiguring an array of solid-state storage elements protected using parity data. The storage element error module determines that one or more storage elements are unavailable to store data ('unavailable storage elements'). The storage element resides in an array with N number of storage elements storing a first ECC chunk and P number of storage elements storing first parity data. The reconfigure data read module reads data from storage elements other than the unavailable storage elements. The data regeneration module uses the first parity data to regenerate missing data from the first ECC chunk. The data reconfiguration module creates a second ECC chunk. The new configuration storage module stores a portion of the second ECC chunk and associated second parity data on (N+P)&#x2212;Z number of storage elements, wherein 1&#x2266;Z&#x2266;P.

Apparatus, system, and method for reconfiguring an array to operate with less storage elements

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed to increase data integrity in a redundant storage system. The receive module receives a read request to read data from a logical page spanning an array of N+P number of storage elements. The array of storage elements includes N number of the storage elements each storing a portion of an ECC chunk and P number of the storage elements storing parity data. The data read module reads data from at least a portion of a physical page on each of X number of storage elements of the N+P number of storage elements where X equals N. The regeneration module regenerates missing data. The ECC module determines if the read data and any regenerated missing data includes an error. The read data combined with any regenerated missing data includes the ECC chunk.

Growing community of inventors

South Jordan, UT, United States of America

Joshua Aune