Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

California Natural Products

William R Tipton

Surendra Verma

Jonathan M Cargille

Thomas Jay Miller

Karan Mehra

Darren Glen Moss

Scott A Brender

Shi Cong

Rajsekhar Das

Garret Buban

Malcolm James Smith

Andrew M Herron

Dana D Groff

Chesong Lee

Cornel Emilian Rat

Landy Wang

Dexter Paul Bradshaw

Raj Das

Kenneth D Ray

Paul J Leach

Charles W Kaufman

Ravinder S Thind

Mark Joseph Zbikowski

Scott Chao-Chueh Lee

Robin Andrew Alexander

Michael V Sliger

Jonathan D Schwartz

Pat R Mitchell

Krassimir Emilov Karamfilov

Senthil Rajaram

Dragos Sambotin

Laura Marie Caulfield

Christian Gregory Allred

Manojkumar Haridas Shende

Lee Edward Prewitt

Matthew Charles Setzer

Duncan G Bryce

Pankaj Mohan Kamat

John Richard McDowell

Jon Cargille

Karthik Thirumalai

James Aaron Holmes

Tristan Charles Griffith

Erik G Hortsch

Gregory J Jacklin

Arushi Aggarwal

Zoheb Lester Alexander Vacheri

Kory V Gill

Erik Schmidt

Shao-Chuan Wang

Krassimir E Karamfilov

John Mcdowell

Ducan G Bryce

The use of steaming functionality on a storage device may be optimized by performing a combination of stream and non-stream writes based on a size of the data being written to a given stream. For example, a method may comprise writing data associated with a plurality of files to a first set of one or more erase blocks, determining that an amount of data associated with a given one of the plurality of files in the first set of one or more erase blocks has reached a threshold, and moving the data associated with the given file from the first set of one or more erase blocks to a stream, the stream comprising a second set of one or more erase blocks on the storage device different from the first set of one or more erase blocks.

Opportunistic use of streams for storing data on a solid state device

A method and a processing device are provided for sequentially aggregating data to a write log included in a volume of a random-access medium. When data of a received write request is determined to be suitable for sequentially aggregating to a write log, the data may be written to the write log and a remapping tree, for mapping originally intended destinations on the random-access medium to one or more corresponding entries in the write log, may be maintained and updated. At time periods, a checkpoint may be written to the write log. The checkpoint may include information describing entries of the write log. One or more of the checkpoints may be used to recover the write log, at least partially, after a dirty shutdown. Entries of the write log may be drained to respective originally intended destinations upon an occurrence of one of a number of conditions.

Aggregation of write traffic to a data store

A file system can allocate data of a storage system into data units, wherein a set of data units can be grouped into a storage region within a volume. A process of verifying validity of data within a storage region can include obtaining a first set of error-detecting codes from a subset of the data stored in a storage system, such as from a data unit of a file system object. Each of the first set of error-detecting codes can be associated with a corresponding data unit within the storage region. A second set of error-detecting codes can be generated based at least in part on the first set of error-detecting codes, and the second set of error-detecting codes can be associated with the storage region so that the second set of error-detecting codes can be used to verify the validity of the data within the storage region.

Efficient detection of corrupt data

Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to storage systems and aliased memory. In aspects, a file system driver or other component may send a request to a memory controller to create an alias between two blocks of memory. One of the blocks of memory may be used for main memory while the other of the blocks of memory may be used for a storage system. In response, the memory controller may create an alias between the blocks of memory. Until the alias is severed, when the memory controller receives a request for data from the block in main memory, the memory controller may respond with data from the memory block used for the storage system. The memory controller may also implement other actions as described herein.

Storage systems and aliased memory

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

A file system allows a different checksum algorithm to be used for different extents of a file system object independently of other extents of the file system object. The checksum algorithm can be a selectable attribute of an extent or range of extents of a file system object, such that some extents of a file system object can use a first checksum algorithm, while other extents of the file system object can use a second checksum algorithm. An extent of the file system object also may have no associated checksum algorithm. The file system stores, for each extent of a file system object, data indicating a checksum for the extent and an indication of any checksum algorithm used for the extent.

File system with per-extent checksums

In response to a request to a file system to perform a requested update, a lock of a first node in a file system can be acquired, and an update of the first node can be performed while the lock of the first node is held. Also in response to the request, a lock of a second node can be acquired, and an update of the second node, which reflects the update of the first node, can be performed while the lock of the second node is held. A file system can allow a pair of update operations to be performed in parallel where both operations include updating the same container node. Additionally, while a file system is running, new namespace types can be defined, and the file system can be extended to manage nodes within the new namespace types.

Extending file system namespace types

Embodiments are directed to efficiently managing data storage and efficiently storing data. In one scenario, a computer system receives a write request addressed to one portion of data storage within a data store. The computer system redirects the received write request to another portion of data storage which includes storage containers, each of which is a logically specified portion of the data store. The computer system determines which storage container the write request is to write to, and identifies a storage container that is to be de-staged from the second portion of data storage to the first portion of data storage. The computer system then de-stages the identified storage containers to the first portion of data storage, the data of the de-staged container being stored on the first portion of data storage in the same order in which the data was stored in the identified storage container prior to de-staging.

Efficient data movement within file system volumes

To provide an operation that can quickly copy or rearrange a file, a file system allows stored data to be shared among two or more files or within a file. The file system provides an operation that allows an extent from one file to be copied into an extent of another file, or into a different extent in the same file if the extents do not overlap. To support such an operation, the file system tracks the storage locations for stored data for extents of a file, and whether the stored data for an extent of a file is shared with any other file or by another portion of the same file. When stored data is shared, writing to an extent of a file that refers to the shared stored data invokes a write operation to a new extent on the storage device, and the tracked information for the affected extents is updated.

File system with data block sharing

A file system uses data integrity techniques that are a selectable attribute of a file system object. Some file system objects have integrity on for various accesses, while other file system objects do not. Different default settings can be provided for different file system objects. Such a setting for a file system object can be changed to and from having integrity on. Given a file system object with an attribute, the file system provides file system operations for which the data integrity operation used on the file system object depends on this attribute. Such operations include, but are not limited to, operations for changing the attribute, creating file system objects with such attributes, providing and changing default settings for such attributes, and writing data to and reading data from files, which use different data integrity techniques based on this attribute.

File system with per-file selectable integrity

Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to storage allocation. In aspects, a hierarchical data structure is used to track allocation data for storage managed by a file system. The hierarchical data structure may have multiple levels with each level having data regarding a different granularity of storage. Portions of the hierarchical data structure may be locked independently of other portions of the hierarchical data structure. The hierarchical data structure may indicate that one or more portions of storage are for exclusive use by a directory. Extra space may be reserved in allocated space in anticipation of subsequent operations. Allocation requestors may obtain storage allocation from regions associated with different levels of the hierarchical data structure.

Hierarchical allocation for file system storage device

Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to file system technology. In aspects, a mechanism is described that allows a file system to handle corrupted file system metadata in a way that provides high availability. When corrupted metadata is detected, the corrupted metadata may be deleted while the file system remains online and available to service file input/output operations that involve non-corrupted metadata.

Handling file system corruption

Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to error detection for files. In aspects, before allowing updates to a clean file, a flag marking the file as dirty is written to non-volatile storage. Thereafter, the file may be updated as long as desired. Periodically or at some other time, the file may be marked as clean after all outstanding updates to the file and error codes associated with the file are written to storage. While waiting for outstanding updates and error codes to be written to storage, if additional requests to update the file are received, the file may be marked as dirty again prior to allowing the additional requests to update the file. The request to write a clean flag regarding the file may be done lazily.

Error detection for files

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

William R Tipton