Low cost raid with seamless disk failure recovery
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsAndrew B. McNeill, Thomas H. Newsom
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A storage subsystem such as an array of disk drives, method of managing disk drives in the storage subsystem and program product therefor. The storage subsystem may be a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) and the individual disks drives may be Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) capable drives. When one of the drives gives an indication of an impending failure, a disk image of the failing disk is built on an available spare disk. Once the image is complete, the failing disk may be replaced without down time for rebuilding a failed disk.
Claims12
1-9. (canceled)
A computer program product for managing disk drives in an array of disk drives, said computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program code thereon, said computer readable program code comprising:
- computer readable program code means for receiving indications of potential disk drive failures from an array of disk drives;
- computer readable program code means for identifying ailing drives responsive to said indications;
- computer readable program code means for mirroring said ailing drives to spare drives and continuing mirroring after replicating said ailing drive on said spare drive, disk images of identified said ailing drives being built responsive to identification each of said drives is ailing;
- and
- computer readable program code means for providing an indication that mirrored said ailing drives are failing.
A storage subsystem comprising:
- an array of Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) disk drives, ones of said array of ATA disk drives being identified as spare drives;
- a failure prediction facility monitoring said array of ATA disk drives for an indication of an impending disk failure, said failure prediction providing an ailing disk indication for each ailing disk identified by said indication of an impending disk failure;
- and
- at least one disk drive controller controlling disk drive selection, said at least one disk drive controller receiving ailing disk indications and selectively designating one of said spare drives as a crutch drive for each of said ailing disk indications, said at least one controller automatically mirroring a respective said ailing drive to a corresponding said crutch drive, mirroring continuing after replicating said ailing drive on said spare drive, wherein a disk image is built for identified ailing disk drives on each said corresponding crutch drive.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.