Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Therron Powell

William Jefferson Westerinen

Cenk Ergan

Michael Richard Fortin

Michael James Zwilling

Mark Joseph Zbikowski

Hanumantha Rao Kodavalla

Nathan Steven Obr

John M Parchem

Clark David Nicholson

Patrick L Stemen

Rajeev Y Nagar

Dean L DeWhitt

Surenda Verma

Dan Teodosiu

Emily Nicole Hill

Jason Michael Anderson

David Golds

Carl M Carter-Schwendler

Emily Nicole Wilson

Kenneth W Stufflebeam

Daniel Teodosiu

Dean L Dewhitt

In order to provide a more efficient persistent storage device, one or more long-term storage media are included along with a non-volatile memory. In one embodiment, one portion of the non-volatile memory is used as a write buffer and a read cache for writes and reads to the long-term storage media. Interfaces are provided for controlling the use of the non-volatile memory as a write buffer and a read cache. Additionally, a portion of the non-volatile memory is used to provide a direct mapping for specified sectors of the long-term storage media. Descriptive data regarding the persistent storage device is stored in another portion of the non-volatile memory.

Non-volatile memory cache performance improvement

Described is a technology by which independent computing functions such as corresponding to separate operating systems may be partitioned into coexisting partitions. A virtual machine manager, or hypervisor, manages the input and output of each partition to operate computer system hardware. One partition may correspond to a special purpose operating system that quickly boots, such as to provide appliance-like behavior, while another partition may correspond to a general purpose operating system that may load while the special purpose operating system is already running. The computer system that contains the partitions may transition functionality and devices from one operating system to the other. The virtual machine manager controls which computer hardware devices are capable of being utilized by which partition at any given time, and may also facilitate inter-partition communication.

Fast booting a computing device to a specialized experience

A system and method using hardware and software components enable a storage module to maintain information about an associated storage device and its content such that the information is accessible when the storage device is offline or in a low power configuration. A general-computing host system connects to the storage module via a pluggable interface to provide information to a nonvolatile memory cache on the storage module. The storage module includes a separate power source, an output display, input buttons, and a module controller. The host system includes an application and host platform for processing file-system related events to send records to the module controller to automatically update a catalog representing storage device information in the nonvolatile memory. When offline, the user may display the catalog information and use the buttons to navigate among it. The host system may also allow the user to interactively review and modify the catalog.

Electronic labeling for offline management of storage devices

A system and method using hardware and software components enable a storage module to collect and maintain control transaction data (e.g., directives/events) when a storage device of the module is offline or in a low power configuration. The storage module contains a nonvolatile memory cache and a module controller, and also may include a separate power source, an output display and input mechanism so that when offline, the user may display and navigate among catalog information corresponding to stored content to set up deferred events related to the content. When reconnected to a general-computing host system, the host system obtains the control transaction data from the storage module, and processes the data into file-system related events and other events to perform actions to the storage device and/or to other resources coupled to the host computer system. The host system may also cache transaction control data on the storage module's cache.

Offline caching of control transactions for storage devices

A storage power optimized server system includes a high performance spinning hard drive for storing a first set of data and a power controlled hard drive for storing a second set of data. The high performance spinning hard drive is continuously driven while the power controlled hard drive may have a lower power consumption, slower access time or higher capacity than the high performance spinning hard drive. The first and second set of data may be based on one or more data conditions. The first set of data may include data that has been requested at a rate above a predetermined threshold, or after a predetermined file age date, or after a predetermined last access date. The second set of data may include data that has been requested at a rate below the predetermined request rate threshold, or before a predetermined file age, or before a predetermined last access date.

System and method for storage power, thermal and acoustic management in server systems

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Therron Powell