Lsi Corporation

Netapp, Inc.

Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Senthil Kannan

Mahmoud K Jibbe

Britto Rossario

Selvaraj Rasappan

Satish Subramanian

Arunkumar Ragendran

Hariharan Kamalavannan

Ganesh Sivaperuman

Suresh Dhanarajan

Dhishankar Sengupta

Padmanabhan Pandurangan

Ciril T Ignatious

Prakash Palanichamy

Padmanabhan Pangurangan

An apparatus including a storage array, a primary controller, a secondary controller and a solid state device. The storage array may be configured to be accessed by a plurality of controllers. A first of the plurality of the controllers may be configured as the primary controller configured to read and write to and from the storage array during a normal condition. A second of the plurality of the controllers may be configured as the secondary controller configured to read and write to and from the storage array during a fault condition. The solid state device may be configured to (i) store data and (ii) be accessed by the storage array and the secondary controller.

Method for handling interrupted writes using multiple cores

Disclosed is a low power consumption storage array. Read and write cycles are separated so that a multiple disk array can be spun down during periods when there are no write requests. Cooling fans are operated with a pulse-width modulated signal in response to cooling demand to further reduce energy consumption.

Low power consumption storage array

A system and method for providing firmware update for network connected storage subsystem components is disclosed. In one embodiment, the storage system is registered via a secured process using a client management module of a firmware update management module residing in a client device associated with the storage system. The storage system includes a plurality of storage subsystems. Further, an inventory list including each storage subsystem component in each of the plurality of storage subsystems along with its associated firmware code level is formed by the client management module. Furthermore, the inventory list along with an associated firmware code level of the storage system is stored by a registration management module of the firmware update management module residing in a registration server coupled to the client device via the network.

System and method for firmware update for network connected storage subsystem components

An apparatus comprising an array controller and a frame buffer. The array controller may be configured to read/write data to/from a drive array in response to one or more input/output requests. The frame buffer may be implemented within the array controller and may be configured to perform (i) a first data integrity check to determine a first type of data error and (ii) a second data integrity check to determine a second type of data error. The frame buffer may log occurrences of the first type of error and the second type of error in a field transmitted with the data. The field may be used to determine a source of possible corruption of the data.

System and method to flag a source of data corruption in a storage subsystem using persistent source identifier bits

A method for establishing a secure connection between a first computer and a second computer, comprising the steps of (A) generating a signature authentication pair on the first computer, (B) receiving a plurality of authentication pairs that may or may not include the signature authentication pair, (C) detecting whether the signature authentication pair is received in the authentication pairs and (D) if the signature authentication pair is detected, creating a secure connection between the first computer and the second computer.

System and method to establish and/or manage a trusted relationship between a host to storage array controller and/or a storage array to storage array controller

An apparatus comprising a first of a plurality of array modules and a second of a plurality of array modules. The first of the plurality of array modules may be configured to connect a first one or more of a plurality of host devices to a first one or more of a plurality of storage arrays. The first array module may comprise a primary controller and a secondary controller. The second of the plurality of array modules may be configured to connect a second one or more of the plurality of host devices to a second one or more of the plurality of storage arrays. The second array module may comprise a primary controller and a secondary controller. Control of access to the storage arrays may be transferred to the secondary controller of the first array module during a failure of the primary controller of the first array module.

Clustered array controller for global redundancy in a SAN

An apparatus comprising an interface circuit and a controller. The interface circuit may be configured to calculate a speed signal in response to data traffic measured over a network. The controller may be configured to present and receive data from an array in response to (a) the speed signal and (b) one or more input/output requests. The interface circuit may generate the speed signal in response to a plurality of predetermined factors. The controller may present and receive the data at one of a plurality of speeds in response to the speed signal.

Varying host interface signaling speeds in a storage array

A method for storing data and two sets of distributed mirrored data disposed as data stripes which permits data recovery without the necessity of parity calculations, is described. Redundant data are stored in groups of five physical hard drives which are logically segmented into stripe groups, each stripe group having three data stripe sets wherein one data stripe is protected by two distributed mirror stripes in accordance with an algorithm. The present method provides protection for all one- and two-disk failures and certain three-disk drive failures, for each physical five disk group, and retains a usable disk capacity of 33%.

Data redundancy using two distributed mirror sets

A method, system, and apparatus a method for remote data back up with de-duplication and recovery from clustered secondary storage arrays are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes writing a set of data of a primary storage module (e.g., may be coupled to the secondary storage cluster with a fiber channel network) to a secondary storage module of a secondary storage cluster, writing an other set of data of the primary storage module to an other secondary storage module coupled to the secondary storage module, writing the set of data from the secondary storage module to the other secondary storage module of the secondary storage cluster (e.g., the other secondary storage module may contain both the set of data and the other set of data), and writing the other set of data from the other secondary storage module to the secondary storage module.

Method for remote data back up with de-duplication and recovery from clustered secondary storage arrays

A first physical capacity of a first physical storage device is determined. A second physical capacity of a second physical storage device that has a physical capacity greater than the first physical capacity is determined. A storage space pool comprising at least a first logical drive, a second logical drive, and a third logical drive is created. The first logical drive corresponds to the first storage device and has the same capacity as the first physical capacity. The second logical drive corresponds to a first portion of the second storage device. The third logical drive corresponds to a second portion of the second storage device. The first portion and the second portion having at least the first physical capacity. Thus, two portions having at least the first physical capacity are utilized on the second physical drive instead of just one portion.

Utilizing more capacity of a physical disk through multiple logical drives on the physical disk

A RAID storage array having a controller and plurality of disk drives is configured into a plurality of groups. The plurality of disk drives are in a plurality of drive trays. The controller includes a main memory. A set of configuration information is stored on a central nonvolatile memory device. The set of configuration information includes group configuration information corresponding to each group of the plurality of groups with which a corresponding disk drive is associated. The set of configuration information is stored on a plurality of remote nonvolatile memory devices that are each associated with at least one of the plurality of drive trays. A bootware control process is loaded into the main memory. The bootware control process is executed. A plurality of service layer processes are loaded into the main memory. The plurality of service layer processes are executed in parallel under the control of the bootware control process. The configuration information is read from the central nonvolatile memory device.

Storage array boot and configuration

A system comprising a host, a solid state device, and an abstract layer. The host may be configured to generate a plurality of input/output (IO) requests. The solid state device may comprise a write cache region and a read cache region. The read cache region may be a mirror of the write cache region. The abstract layer may be configured to (i) receive the plurality of IO requests, (ii) process the IO requests, and (iii) map the plurality of IO requests to the write cache region and the read cache region.

System to reduce drive overhead using a mirrored cache volume in a storage array

Disclosed is a method of improving storage reliability comprising receiving an indicator of an impending failure of a first storage device in a RAID group. In response to the indicator, writing data to the first storage device is ceased. A first block of data directed to be written on the first storage device is written to a memory device. Data stored on the first storage device is copied to a second storage device. The first block of data is copied from the memory device to the second storage device. The RAID group is operated with the second storage device functioning in place of the first storage device. Data is read from said second storage device.

Storage utilization to improve reliability using impending failure triggers

A system comprising a scheduler, a first core, and a second core. The scheduler may be configured to prioritize a plurality of input/output (IO) requests. The first core may be configured to process one of the plurality of IO requests based on the prioritizing of the plurality of IO requests. The second core may be configured to process a different one of the plurality of IO requests based on the prioritizing of the plurality of IO requests.

Growing community of inventors

Pondicherry, India

Senthil Kannan