Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090083504 | Data Integrity Validation in Storage Systems - A data storage method comprises storing first data in at least a first data chunk, wherein the first data chunk is a logical representation of one or more sectors on at least a first disk drive in a storage system; storing first metadata, associated with the first data, in at least a first appendix, wherein the first appendix is a logical representation of a sector region on at least the first disk drive in the storage system, and wherein the first metadata comprises first atomicity metadata (AMD) and first validity metadata (VMD) associated with the first data; and storing a copy of the first VMD for the first data in at least one low latency non-volatile storage (LLNVS) device. | 03-26-2009 |
20100057949 | CIRCUITS, SYSTEMS, AND METHODS TO INTEGRATE STORAGE VIRTUALIZATION IN A STORAGE CONTROLLER - Methods and systems for improved performance in virtualized storage systems. Features and aspects hereof provide for a virtualization circuit integrated in each storage controller of a storage system. The virtualization circuit is operable to determine whether a request received from an attached host system will be processed locally by the receiving storage controller or will be processed by another storage controller of the storage system. If another storage controller is to process the request, the virtualization circuit is operable to transfer the request to the appropriate other storage controller. The virtualization circuit then receives result information from the other storage controller and returns such result information to the requesting host system. Integration of the virtualization circuit at below level of request processing of storage controllers improves performance of virtualization as compared to prior techniques. | 03-04-2010 |
20100058335 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR INTEGRATED STORAGE AND DATA MANAGEMENT USING A HYPERVISOR - Methods and systems for integrated data management and block level storage management in a storage system having a controller with a multi-core processor. A hypervisor manages the multi-core processor such that at least one processor is used in a first virtual machine on which a block level storage management process is operable. The first virtual machine may also operate under the control of a real-time operating system. The hypervisor also defines a second virtual machine using one or more other processor cores and operates a data management application process optionally under control of a general purpose operating system. The optional general purpose operating system and the data management application process access storage devices by communicating through the hypervisor with the block level storage management process operable in the first virtual machine. | 03-04-2010 |
20100071064 | APPARATUS, SYSTEMS, AND METHODS FOR CONTENT SELFSCANNING IN A STORAGE SYSTEM - Apparatus, systems, and method for content self-scanning within a storage system. Features and aspects hereof operable within a storage controller of a storage system scan blocks of data within the storage system to detect the presence of a pattern in one or more data blocks. The patterns to be matched may be stored as regular expressions in a pattern database in the storage system and may represent, for example, viruses to be detected in the data blocks of the storage system. Data blocks may be scanned, in real time, as they are received from an attached host system. Data blocks may also be retrieved from within the storage system for scanning. The storage system may cooperate with a scanning service computer to determine a file of data blocks related to any data block that matches a portion of a pattern. | 03-18-2010 |
20100153620 | Storage system snapshot assisted by SSD technology - A method and apparatus for taking a snapshot of a storage system employing a solid state disk (SSD). A plurality of mapping tables in the SSD store data needed to create a one or more point in time snapshots and a current view of the SSD. In response to a write command, the SSD executes its normal write process and updates its mapping tables to indicate the current view of the SSD and additionally retains the original data in a table of pointers to the original data, as the snapshot of an earlier state of the SSD. In the preferred embodiment, the innate ability of SSDs to write data to a new location is used to perform a point-in-time copy with little or no loss in performance in performing the snapshot. | 06-17-2010 |
20100306452 | MULTI-MAPPED FLASH RAID - Disclosed is a storage system. The storage system includes a redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) controller. The RAID controller includes a flash memory controller coupled to a flash memory. The flash memory controller may perform background management tasks. These include logging and error reporting, address translation, cache table management, bad block management, defect management, wear leveling, and garbage collection. The array controller also allows the flash memory to be divided into multiple mappings. | 12-02-2010 |
20100318711 | SIMULTANEOUS INTERMEDIATE PROXY DIRECT MEMORY ACCESS - Disclosed is a method that simultaneously transfers DMA data from a peripheral device to a hardware assist function and processor memory. A first DMA transfer is configured to transfer data from the peripheral to a peripheral DMA engine. While receiving the data, the DMA engine simultaneously transfers this data to processor memory. The DMA engine also transfers a copy of the data to a hardware assist function. The DMA engine may also simultaneously transfer data from processor memory to a peripheral device while transferring a copy to a hardware assist function. | 12-16-2010 |
20110231613 | REMOTE STORAGE CACHING - Disclosed is a storage system. A network interface device (NIC) receives network storage commands from a host. The NIC may cache the data to/from the storage commands in a solid-state disk. The NIC may respond to future network storage command by supplying the data from the solid-state disk rather than initiating a network transaction. | 09-22-2011 |
20120144111 | METHOD AND DEVICE FOR UTILIZING APPLICATION-LEVEL PRIOR KNOWLEDGE FOR SELECTIVELY STORING DATA IN HIGHER PERFORMANCE MEDIA - A method for selectively storing data identified by a software application in higher performance media may include executing control programming for an operating system and a software application hosted by the operating system. The software application assigns a first importance level to a first portion of data and a second importance level to a second portion of data. A first portion of data having the first importance level assigned by the software application is stored in a first storage medium at the instruction of the operating system. A second portion of data having the second importance level assigned by the software application is stored in a second storage medium at the instruction of the operating system. The second storage medium has at least one performance, reliability, or security characteristic different from the first storage medium. | 06-07-2012 |
20120185643 | SYSTEMS CONFIGURED FOR IMPROVED STORAGE SYSTEM COMMUNICATION FOR N-WAY INTERCONNECTIVITY - Storage systems configured for improved N-way connectivity among all of a plurality of storage controllers and all of a plurality of storage devices in the system. All controllers of the storage system are coupled through a switched fabric communication medium to all of the storage devices of the storage system. Thus, the back-end interface of each storage controller of the storage system is used for all communications with any of the storage devices as well as for any communications among the controllers to coordinate the N-way distribution of stored data in a declustered RAID storage environment. This use of the back-end channel for all storage controller to storage device N-way connectivity as well as controller to controller N-way connectivity eliminates the need for a dedicated inter-controller interface for such N-way connectivity and eliminates the over-utilization of a front-end (e.g., network) communication path for providing N-way connectivity in the storage system. | 07-19-2012 |
20140040411 | System and Method for Simple Scale-Out Storage Clusters - Systems and associated methods for flexible scalability of storage systems. In one aspect, a storage controller may include an interface to a fabric adapted to permit each storage controller coupled to the fabric to directly access memory mapped components of all other storage controllers coupled to the fabric. The CPU and other master device circuits within a storage controller may directly address memory an I/O devices directly coupled thereto within the same storage controller and may use RDMA features to directly address memory an I/O devices of other storage controllers through the fabric interface. | 02-06-2014 |
20140040549 | STORAGE ARRAY ASSIST ARCHITECTURE - Disclosed is a storage system architecture. An Environmental service module (ESM) is coupled to one or more array controllers. The ESM is configured with a central processing unit and one or more assist functions. The assist functions may include nonvolatile memory. This nonvolatile memory may be used for write caching, mirroring data, and/or configuration data. The assist functions, or the ESM, may be controlled by the array controllers using SCSI or RDMA commands. | 02-06-2014 |
20140089925 | Methods and Systems for Integrated Storage and Data Management Using a Hypervisor - Methods and systems for integrated data management and block level storage management in a storage system having a controller with a multi-core processor. A hypervisor manages the multi-core processor such that at least one processor is used in a first virtual machine on which a block level storage management process is operable. The first virtual machine may also operate under the control of a real-time operating system. The hypervisor also defines a second virtual machine using one or more other processor cores and operates a data management application process optionally under control of a general purpose operating system. The optional general purpose operating system and the data management application process access storage devices by communicating through the hypervisor with the block level storage management process operable in the first virtual machine. | 03-27-2014 |
20140281123 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR HANDLING I/O WRITE REQUESTS - System and methods for managing I/O write requests of host systems to physical storage. A storage subsystem includes a plurality of storage devices where each storage device is configured to provide data storage. At least a pair of redundant controllers is connected to the plurality of storage devices for executing the I/O write requests from the host systems. A received I/O write request is initially saved in a controller memory of one of the controllers and mirrored in controller memory of the other controller. In one embodiment, the I/O write request is transferred to a flash memory device for subsequent transfer to the storage devices. Once transferred to the flash memory device, the I/O write request may be flushed from the controller memories. The I/O write request may then be transferred to the storage devices from the flash memory device as a background operation. | 09-18-2014 |