Adaptec, Inc.

Digital Equipment Corporation

Broadcom Corporation

Raidcore, Inc.

Broadcom Company

Randy M Arnott

Eric S Noya

Jeffrey T Wong

Chris Robert Franklin

Mitchell N Rosich

Timothy Lee Hoskins

Bryan K Panner

Paul Richard Shaughnessy

Richard Napolitano

Stanley Luke

Chester Juzsczak

Alexander C McLeod

Herbert W Silverman

Stephen W Berry

A method, system and computer program product for a generic data storage interface for local and remote networked storage is provided. It comprises providing a data storage interface accessible by an operating system, transmitting data from an application running on the operating system to the data storage interface and selectively storing the data using the same data storage interface in either a local or a remote networked storage location. Firmware for the common data storage interface assigns a unique identifier that classifies an I/O request as a local or remote networked I/O request and adds the I/O request to a common stack for local and remote networked data storage elements. When an I/O request is removed from the stack, the unique identifier is used to identify the I/O request as a local or remote networked I/O request. Local I/O requests are executed via a local bus such as PCI, or SCSI. Remote networked I/O requests require a connection to one or more remote networked storage elements via a network. Memory space in a cache may be allocated for both local or remote networked I/O requests. DMA transfer may be employed for both local and remote networked I/O requests. Both local and remote networked I/O requests are executed using the same firmware and the same data interface.

Combined local and network storage interface

A method and system for copying operating system information to said at least two storage devices, selectively hiding at least one, but not all, of the storage devices from being accessed by the operating system, and selectively revealing one or more of said hidden storage devices as needed to permit access to the information stored therein.

Method and system for backing up and restoring online system information

Method and computer program product for backing up and restoring online system information

A finite state machine (FSM) for a redundant array of independent disk includes a single process context that maintains an entire finite state required for input/output operations performed in a RAID system. The finite state is only updated in response to calls and call-backs. The call-backs can include procedure returns and interrupt signals. The call is received directly from an application program, and the call-backs are received from a driver and passed back directly to the application software by the finite state machine.

Finite state machine with a single process context for a RAID system

A method and system enables data redundancy across servers, networks, and controllers by using standard redundant files as underlying storage for RAID subsystem configurations. A redundant array of independent disk (RAID) subsystem includes a front-end interface configured to process non-redundant requests received from a primary file system communicating with an application program. A back-end interface of the RAID subsystem is configured to process redundant requests corresponding to the non-redundant requests. The redundant requests to be issued to a secondary file system communicates with a block mode device including multiple physical storage devices.

File mode RAID subsystem

A method and system that allows the distribution of hot spare space across multiple disk drives that also store the data and redundant data in a fully active array of redundant independent disks, so that an automatic rebuilding of the array to an array of the identical level of redundancy can be achieved with fewer disk drives. The method configures the array with D disk drives of B physical blocks each. N user data and redundant data blocks are allocated to each disk drive, and F free blocks are allocated as hot spare space to each disk drive, where N+F&#x3c;=B, and ((D&#x2212;M)&#xd7;F)&#x3e;=N. Thus, rebuilding of data and redundant blocks of a failed disk drive in the free blocks of the remaining disk drives is enabled after M disk drive failures.

Rebuilding redundant disk arrays using distributed hot spare space

A configurable RAID subsystem includes a user data array connected to a user application via a block I/O path, and a configuration array connected to a configuration application via the same block I/O path. The user data array processes user data access commands executed by the user application; and the configuration application processes configuration commands, the user data access commands and the configuration commands communicated to the user data array and the configuration array respectively, via the block I/O path. A dynamic identification is assigned to the user data array by the configuration array, and a static identification is assigned to the configuration array.

Method and system for configuring RAID subsystems with block I/O commands and block I/O path

A system and method for updating parity based upon locking and unlocking of a storage stripe in a redundant array of independent disk (RAID) implementation is provided. The stripe includes a parity block. The stripe is locked to prevent colliding I/O operations from being performed thereto while a current I/O operation is underway with respect to the stripe. A parity buffer is maintained that is updated to include the current parity information for the stripe. The buffer is &ldquo;swapped&rdquo; with the parity buffer associated with a next waiting I/O operation request before the stripe is unlocked. The buffer continues to be swapped with further requests so long as another I/O operation request waits on the lock. When no further I/O operation request for the given stripe is detected, then the current parity buffer is written into the stripe parity block. The intervening swaps reduce the number of parity cache reads and writes, increasing efficiency.

System and method for parity caching based on stripe locking in raid data storage

A system and method for changing between various levels and configurations of redundant array of independent disk (RAID) implementations is provided. A specialized driver establishes a specialized &ldquo;morph&rdquo; container in a top level above primary and secondary level containers. The morph container communicates with the host computer I/O and arranges mapping of data between an original source container configuration and a new destination configuration. A morph container mapping structure is implemented to accomplish the mapping therebetween. Where data is migrated from an original container space back into an original space, a temporary container can be established to facilitate the transfer between the space.

System and method for accomplishing data storage migration between raid levels

A file array storage architecture comprises a file system that is distributed across a data processing platform consisting of a host computer coupled to an adapter over a high-speed, low latency interface and an input/output subsystem that is located entirely on the adapter. The distributed nature of the architecture enables implementation of the file system in accordance with a modified client-server computing model; that is, the architecture includes a client file system executing on the host computer and a server file system executing on the adapter.

File array storage architecture having file system distributed across a data processing platform

The system enables on-line container reconfiguration with minimal interference to the on-line processing by blocking all incoming I/O requests into the container drivers. The drivers queue the incoming I/O requests, continue to process all the preexisting I/O requests and signal the system upon completion. Upon receiving signals from all the container drivers with preexisting I/O requests, the system reconfigures the container tables as requested in the reconfiguration request. When the reconfiguration is complete, the system unblocks the blocked I/O requests and processes them and subsequent requests in accordance with the new configuration. By temporarily blocking the I/O requests and dynamically reconfiguring the container tables while the file system is still processing other I/O requests, the system performs on-line container reconfigurations with minimal interference with other on-line processing.

System for on-line disk system configuration

A file away storage architecture comprises a file system that is distributed across a data processing platform consisting of a host computer coupled to an adapter over a high-speed, low latency interface and an input/output subsystem that is located entirely on the adapter. The distributed nature of the architecture enables implementation of the file system in accordance with a modified client-server computing model; that is, the architecture includes a client file system executing on the host computer and a server file system executing on the adapter.

A data processing computer system and virtual partitioning method for creating a multi-level container in the computer system are disclosed. The computer system enables the creation of multi-level containers including primary and secondary containers without including specific knowledge of the primary containers in the secondary containers. The computer system builds the primary containers in a container structure and stores the partition structures for the primary containers in Partition Table entry. Then, if primary containers are part of a multi-level container structure, the system builds a virtual partition that represents these primary containers are thereafter created from these virtual partitions. The virtual Partition Table structure for the secondary containers includes pointers to the entry points of the primary container drivers. By storing only pointers to the primary container drivers in the secondary container's partition structures, the computer system enables a method for creating multi-level containers without including specific knowledge of the primary containers in the secondary container's partition structures and uses the same method to create single-level containers and multi-level containers. The computer system includes an input/output (I/O) unit or subsystem that configures storage devices into multi-level containers by copying partition structures for primary containers into the partition table and that enables reconfiguration of storage devices into containers while still online.

Growing community of inventors

Mont Vernon, NH, United States of America

Randy M Arnott