System and method for data protection with multidimensional parity

A data storage management system comprising:

• a plurality of storage devices, each storage device comprising a plurality of storage areas;
• a storage management control mechanism configured to receive a storage request associated with a data set;
• a communication system between the plurality of storage devices and the storage management mechanism;
• means for determining at least one digital representation of the data set;
• and
• a write mechanism in the storage management control mechanism capable of writing the digital representation in at least one storage area;
• wherein the number of the storage areas used for writing a first data set differs from the number of the storage areas used for writing a second data set.

A data storage management system for storing a plurality of data sets, the system comprising:

• a plurality of storage devices, each storage device comprising a plurality of storage areas;
• a storage management control mechanism configured to receive a storage request associated with a data set;
• a communication system coupling the plurality of storage devices and the storage management mechanism;
• and
• a plurality of parity groups defined within at least one storage area, the parity group comprising a logical combination of the plurality of data sets;
• wherein levels of parity protection of the plurality of parity groups varies for arbitrarily small subsets of data within the overall data set protected by the plurality of parity groups.

A method of providing parity protection for a data set comprising the acts of:

• selecting a primary data element for entry;
• determining a desired degree of fault tolerance for the data element;
• selecting a number of non-intersecting parity groups to be associated with the primary data element;
• selecting a primary location for the primary data element;
• writing the data element to the primary location;
• updating the parity groups associated with the data element;
• and
• confirming the write operation and associated parity updates.

A method of implementing data parity protection for a plurality of data sets comprising the acts of:

• providing a plurality of storage devices, each storage device comprising a plurality of storage areas;
• associating a parity group with each data set, each parity group comprising at least one of the plurality of data sets, wherein the act of associating a parity group with each data set comprises selecting a number of parity groups for each data set independently of the number of parity groups for each other data set;
• and
• dynamically altering the composition of the plurality of storage devices.

A method of providing parity protection for a data set comprising the acts of:

• determining a desired degree of fault tolerance for data element;
• selecting a number of non-intersecting parity groups to be associated with the data element;
• selecting a location for the data element;
• and
• writing the data element to the selected location.