Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Lee Edward Prewitt

Scott Chao-Chueh Lee

Robin Andrew Alexander

Vladimir Sadovsky

Chiuchin Chen

Laura Marie Caulfield

Ravinder S Thind

Vadim Makhervaks

James Bovee

Ioan Oltean

Madhav Himanshubhai Pandya

Aaron William Ogus

William R Tipton

Rajsekhar Das

Garret Buban

Omar Carey

Bryan Stephen Matthew

Scott Chau-Chueh Lee

Zone hints for use with a zoned namespace (ZNS) storage device. Zone hints include one or more of a first hint indicating that a zone is part of a group of a plurality of zones, a second hint indicating that the zone is to be fast-filled, or a third hint indicating that the zone is associated with a background operation. The first hint is structured to instruct the ZNS storage device to allocate to the zone a first storage resources that are physically adjacent to second storage resources reserved for others of the plurality of zones. The second hint is structured to instruct the ZNS storage device to bypass a staging area when writing to the zone. The third hint is structured to instruct the ZNS storage device to deprioritizing at least one operation writing to the zone, or to bypass the staging area when writing to the zone.

Zone hints for zoned namespace storage devices

Techniques for block storage using a hybrid memory device are described. In at least some embodiments, a hybrid memory device includes a volatile memory portion, such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM). The hybrid memory device further includes non-volatile memory portion, such as flash memory. In at least some embodiments, the hybrid memory device can be embodied as a non-volatile dual in-line memory module, or NVDIMM. Techniques discussed herein employ various functionalities to enable the hybrid memory device to be exposed to various entities as an available block storage device.

Block storage using a hybrid memory device

An append-only streams capability may be implemented that allows the host (e.g., the file system) to determine an optimal stream size based on the data to be stored in that stream. The storage device may expose to the host one or more characteristics of the available streams on the device, including but not limited to the maximum number of inactive and active streams on the device, the erase block size, the maximum number of erase blocks that can be written in parallel, and an optimal write size of the data. Using this information, the host may determine which particular stream offered by the device is best suited for the data to be stored.

Append only streams for storing data on a solid state device

Systems and methods for detecting legacy storage devices that may falsely and/or incorrectly report to host systems that they have removable media. Such false or incorrect reporting may cause the host system to periodically poll the storage device as to whether the device is ready for I/O processing. Such polling would be unnecessary and represent a waste of power expended by the host system. In one embodiment, the present system may implement processes that periodically poll storage media and update a database. The database would be a listing of storage devices indicating whether they truly have removable media or falsely report that they have removable media. In another embodiment, the present system may apply some heuristically testing to determine whether a storage device so falsely indicates removable media. In another embodiment, telemetry service may be used by a group of hosts to share data regarding such storage devices.

Systems and methods for host detection of USB asynchronous notification capability

An improved interface for managing disparate read, write, and erase sizes and operations in data storage devices is provided. By improving an interface between a storage system driver layer and associated storage devices, performance of data storage is improved, including improving data storage speed and storage media endurance. Storage media management operations are made more efficient and consistent by providing improved types and sequences of commands sent from the driver layer to the device control layer such that data write operations are performed in a sequential manner as write commands are directed to portions of data as opposed to buffering individual portions of data followed by a large wholescale write/erase process for the buffered data.

Modular sequential writing of data to data storage devices

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Mercer Island, WA, United States of America

Lee Edward Prewitt