Netapp, Inc.

Sharon A Gavarre

James A Taylor

Faris Hindi

Doug Coatney

Tim K Emami

A storage device failure in a computer storage system can be analyzed by the storage system by examining relevant information about the storage device and its environment. Information about the storage device is collected in real-time and stored; this is an on-going process such that some information is continuously available. The information can include information relating to the storage device, such as input/output related information, and information relating to a storage shelf where the storage device is located, such as a status of adjacent storage devices on the shelf. All of the relevant information is analyzed to determine a reason for the storage device failure. Optionally, additional information may be collected and analyzed by the storage system to help determine the reason for the storage device failure. The analysis and supporting information can be stored in a log and/or presented to a storage system administrator to view.

Creating environmental snapshots of storage device failure events

A storage management module is described herein for servicing, according to servicing parameters, storage devices of a storage system that are exhibiting errors, the servicing parameters being contained and read from an external parameters file (rather than being encoded as instructions in the storage management module). By using an external parameters file, the servicing parameters can be easily modified by reading a new file having modified parameters without requiring modification of the code instructions of the storage management module. The parameters file may comprise monitoring or testing parameters, such as error thresholds and recommended actions upon reaching an error threshold, wherein the parameters vary depending on storage device type or error type. The parameters file may be stored at a predetermined location on the storage system, whereby the storage management module may be configured to periodically examine the predetermined location to locate and read new parameter files (having modified parameters).

Dynamically modifying parameters for servicing of storage devices

A method for providing data regarding a storage system comprising storage devices is described herein. A storage management module of an operating system of the storage system may be used for servicing (e.g., monitoring or testing) storage devices according to servicing parameters. For each serviced storage device, a reporting module of the storage management module may collect storage device and storage system data upon the occurrence of predetermined events (e.g., when a storage device exhibits an error and monitoring begins, when monitoring ends, and when testing of the storage device ends). The collected data may be saved to a report file in a predetermined format and received by a program configured to automatically extract the data according to the predetermined format for use in storage device and storage system analysis and to determine modified servicing parameters used by the storage management module to service storage devices.

Method and apparatus for reporting storage device and storage system data

A storage management module for evaluating and repairing errors during monitoring or testing of storage devices of a storage system is described herein. When a storage device exhibits errors that reaches (in number) an error threshold, the storage management module determines whether any errors are due to damaged sectors localized in a single physical area of a predetermined size (referred to as a 'patch') of a platter of the storage device using the physical addresses of the errors. Two or more errors may be grouped as a single error if they are located within a predetermined threshold distance from each other on a platter and counted as a single error against the error threshold. A patch containing two or more damaged sectors is referred to as a 'damaged' patch. In some embodiments, all sectors of a damaged patch (including undamaged sectors) are reassigned to spare sectors.

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Sharon A Gavarre