US 2013/0151769 A1 · Hard Disk Drive Reliability In Server Environment Using Forced Hot Swapping

Abstract

An approach is provided to inactivate a selected drive included in a RAID configuration. While inactive, write requests are handled by identifying data blocks to be written to each of the RAID drives. The identification also identifies a data block address corresponding to the data blocks. Data blocks destined to non-selected drives are written to the non-selected drives. The data blocks destined to the selected drive is written to a memory area outside of the RAID configuration. The data block addresses corresponding to the data blocks are also written to the memory area. After a period of time, the selected drive is reactivated. During reactivation, the data block addresses and their corresponding data blocks that were written to the memory area are read from the memory area and each of the data blocks are written to the selected drive at the corresponding data block addresses.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A machine-implemented method comprising:

inactivating a selected drive, wherein the selected drive is one of a plurality of drives included in a RAID configuration;
processing a plurality of write requests to the RAID configuration while the selected drive is inactive, the processing of each of the write requests further comprising:
identifying a plurality of data blocks destined to be written to the selected drive, wherein the identifying includes identifying a data block address corresponding to each of the plurality of data blocks;
and
writing the data block destined to the selected drive to a memory area outside of the RAID configuration, wherein the writing further includes writing the data block address corresponding to the data block destined to the selected drive;
reactivating the selected drive after a period of time, wherein the reactivation further comprises:
reading one or more data block addresses and their corresponding data blocks from the memory area;
and
writing each of the read data blocks to the selected drive at the data block address corresponding to the respective data blocks.

6 more elements

An information handling system comprising:

one or more processors;
a plurality of drives accessible by at least one of the processors wherein the drives are in a RAID configuration, wherein the RAID configuration provides data redundancy, and wherein the RAID configuration corresponds to a RAID algorithm;
a memory accessible by at least one of the processors;
a set of instructions stored in the memory and executed by at least one of the, wherein the set of instructions perform actions of:
inactivating a selected one of the plurality of drives;
processing a plurality of write requests to the RAID configuration while the selected drive is inactive, the processing of each of the write requests further comprising:
identifying a plurality of data blocks destined to be written to each of drive, wherein the identifying is based on the RAID algorithm and further includes identifying a data block address corresponding to each of the plurality of data blocks;
writing the data blocks destined to one or more non-selected drives to the non-selected drives at the corresponding data block addresses;
and
writing the data block destined to the selected drive to a memory area of the memory, wherein the writing further includes writing the data block address corresponding to the data block destined to the selected drive;
reactivating the selected drive after a period of time, wherein the reactivation further comprises:
reading one or more data block addresses and their corresponding data blocks from the memory area;
and
writing each of the read data blocks to the selected drive at the data block address corresponding to the respective data blocks.

11 more elements

A computer program product stored in a computer readable medium, comprising functional descriptive material that, when executed by an information handling system, causes the information handling system to perform actions comprising:

inactivating a selected drive, wherein the selected drive is one of a plurality of drives included in a RAID configuration, wherein the RAID configuration provides data redundancy, and wherein the RAID configuration corresponds to a RAID algorithm;
processing a plurality of write requests to the RAID configuration while the selected drive is inactive, the processing of each of the write requests further comprising:
identifying a plurality of data blocks destined to be written to each of the drives included in the RAID configuration including the selected drive, wherein the identifying is based on the RAID algorithm and further includes identifying a data block address corresponding to each of the plurality of data blocks;
writing the data blocks destined to one or more non-selected drives to the non-selected drives at the corresponding data block addresses;
and
writing the data block destined to the selected drive to a memory area outside of the RAID configuration, wherein the writing further includes writing the data block address corresponding to the data block destined to the selected drive;
reactivating the selected drive after a period of time, wherein the reactivation further comprises:
reading one or more data block addresses and their corresponding data blocks from the memory area;
and
writing each of the read data blocks to the selected drive at the data block address corresponding to the respective data blocks.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Hard Disk Drive Reliability In Server Environment Using Forced Hot Swapping

Life of this patent

Hard Disk Drive Reliability In Server Environment Using Forced Hot Swapping

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20