US 7,454,566 B1Granted

System and method for adaptive RAID configuration

AssigneeNVIDIA Corporation

InventorMark A. Overby

Life of this patent

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Abstract

One embodiment of the present invention includes the steps of determining the optimal RAID level to implement for a given disk drive array, and to the extent applicable, making unallocated disk space available to the user in the form of unprotected disk space. The method efficiently allocates appropriate RAID volumes for the given disk drive array, and, by making the unallocated disk space available to users, allows disk drives of unequal sizes to be effectively used in the disk drive array. Another embodiment of the present invention reconfigures an existing RAID array such that the storage space available on various disk drives in the disk drive array may be used in the most efficient manner. The alternative embodiment is especially useful if an existing RAID array is upgraded by adding a disk drive to, or modified by replacing one or more disk drives in, the existing disk drive array.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A method for adaptively reconfiguring a set of disk drives to implement a reconfigured RAID array comprising RAID 1 and RAID 5 data, wherein at least a subset of the set of disk drives is originally configured to implement an original RAID array comprising RAID 1 data, at least part of the data stored in the original RAID array being migrated into the reconfigured RAID array by converting the data, the method comprising:

identifying a first RAID volume of a first RAID type that is associated with the original RAID array, including:
selecting a RAID type based on a number of disk drives in the set of disk drives having available storage space, including selecting drives that are a part of the original RAID array;
determining a maximum partition size for the RAID type,
determining that the number of disk drives having available storage space is greater than two so that the RAID type is RAID 5;
applying the maximum partition size to each of the disk drives having available storage space to define the reconfigured RAID volume for storing data in RAID 5, including disk drives that are members of the original RAID array, to establish a RAID 5 partition on each disk drive of the reconfigured RAID array;
and
migrating the data from the original RAID array into portions of the reconfigured RAID array, including converting data stored in the original RAID array in RAID 1 format to a RAID 5 format consistent with the reconfigured RAID array, while converting selected partitions on disk drives from the original RAID array into partitions on the disk drives in the reconfigured RAID array.

4 more elements

A computer-readable medium storing instructions for causing a computing device to adaptively reconfigure a set of disk drives to implement a reconfigured RAID array comprising RAID 1 and RAID 5 data, wherein at least a subset of the set of disk drives is originally configured to implement an original RAID array comprising RAID 1 data, at least part of the data stored in the original RAID array being migrated into the reconfigured RAID array by converting the data, by performing the steps of:

identifying a first RAID volume of a first RAID type that is associated with the original RAID array, including:
selecting a RAID type based on a number of disk drives in the set of disk drives having available storage space, including selecting drives that are a part of the original RAID array;
determining a maximum partition size for the RAID type,
determining that the number of disk drives having available storage space is greater than two so that the RAID type is RAID 5;
applying the maximum partition size to each of the disk drives having available storage space to define the second reconfigured RAID volume for storing data in RAID 5, including disk drives that are members of the original RAID array, to establish a RAID 5 partition on each disk drive of the reconfigured RAID array;
and
migrating the data from the original RAID array into portions of the reconfigured RAID array, including converting data stored in the original RAID array in RAID 1 format to a RAID 5 format consistent with the reconfigured RAID array, while converting selected partitions on disk drives from the original RAID array into partitions on disk drives in the reconfigured RAID array.

4 more elements

A system for adaptively reconfiguring a set of disk drives to implement a reconfigured RAID array comprising RAID 1 and RAID 5 data, wherein at least a subset of the set of disk drives is originally configured to implement an original RAID array comprising RAID 1 data, at least part of the data stored in the original RAID array being migrated into a second the reconfigured RAID array by converting the data, the system comprising:

a memory;
and
a processor configured to perform the steps of:
identifying a first RAID volume of a first RAID type that is associated with the original RAID array, including:
selecting a RAID type based on a number of disk drives in the set of disk drives having available storage space, including selecting drives that are a part of the original RAID array,
determining a maximum partition size for the RAID type,
determining that the number of disk drives having available storage space is greater than two so that the RAID type is RAID 5;
applying the maximum partition size to each of the disk drives having available storage space to define the reconfigured RAID volume for storing data in RAID 5, including disk drives that are members of the original RAID array, to establish a RAID 5 partition on each disk drive of the reconfigured RAID array, and
migrating the data from the original RAID array into portions of the reconfigured RAID array including converting data stored in the original RAID array in RAID 1 format to a RAID 5 format consistent with the reconfigured RAID array, while converting selected partitions on disk drives from the original RAID array into partitions on the disk drives in the reconfigured RAID array.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 11/135,848Filed 23 May 2005 · us provisional application
Priority: 2 May 2005
Granted: 18 Nov 2008
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification8 codes

G06F 3/0644
Organizing or formatting or addressing of data: management of space entities, e.g. partitions, extents, pools
G06F 3/0607
Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management: by facilitating the process of upgrading existing storage systems, e.g. for…
G06F 3/0608
Specifically adapted to achieve a particular effect: saving storage space on storage systems
G06F 3/0632
Configuration or reconfiguration of storage systems: by initialisation or re-initialisation of storage systems