The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 08, 2009
Filed:
Jan. 03, 2006
Brett Niver, Grafton, MA (US);
Steven T. Mcclure, Northboro, MA (US);
Steven R. Chalmer, Auburndale, MA (US);
David L. Scheffey, Medway, MA (US);
Kevin E. Granlund, Sutton, MA (US);
Brett Niver, Grafton, MA (US);
Steven T. McClure, Northboro, MA (US);
Steven R. Chalmer, Auburndale, MA (US);
David L. Scheffey, Medway, MA (US);
Kevin E. Granlund, Sutton, MA (US);
EMC Corporation, Hopkinton, MA (US);
Abstract
A data storage system employs a virtual disk enclosure that utilizes a number of physical disk drives to create a set of virtual disk drives that are visible to the remainder of the storage system. The virtual disk drives exhibit a set of characteristics such as respective storage capacities, access times, and reliability measures that are user-selectable within respective limits determined by the set of corresponding physical disk drive characteristics. For example, a RAID protection scheme can be used such that the overall storage capacity of the virtual disk drives is less than that of the physical disk drives, but has greater overall reliability/availability. The system may utilize a recursive protection scheme in which the virtual disk drives are utilized according to a second RAID configuration to provide a set of highly available logical storage volumes to host computer systems connected to the data storage system. The virtual disk enclosure preferably includes redundant components for enhanced system availability.