US 8,751,836 B1Granted

Data storage system and method for monitoring and controlling the power budget in a drive enclosure housing data storage devices

AssigneeDataDirect Networks, Inc.

InventorsMichael J. Piszczek, Manjari Mishra, William Joseph Harker, Andrew Pershall, David F. Fellinger

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Abstract

A control processor manages the power budget in a drive enclosure and is within the drive enclosure which monitors in real time a redundantly configured power supply unit, drives, interposers, and temperature sensors, and determines the power settings for each drive to avoid overload and overheating in the system. The control processor dynamically adjusts the mode of operation as needed during operation through the SAS interposer. A localized monitoring and control mechanism eliminates the need for extraneous coordination of information across various entities that access the storage. Data tunneling takes place directly between the compute nodes and target drives through the SAS expander and interposer, and does not need buffering the pending IO requests in the DRAM.

Claims22

Dependent claims

A data storage system with power budget control, comprising:

a plurality of data storage devices,
a drive enclosure populated with said plurality of data storage devices,
a redundantly configured power supply unit positioned in said drive enclosure, wherein said power supply unit includes a first power supply and at least a second power supply together sharing a power load of said drive enclosure and cumulatively meeting power requirements of said drive enclosure,
at least one control processor positioned in said drive enclosure in operative connection with said plurality of data storage devices and said redundantly configured power supply unit, said at least one control processor being configured to monitor in real-time a power level available from said redundantly configured power supply unit and power load of said data storage devices, and to dynamically adjust a mode of operation of at least one of said plurality of data storage devices in accordance with data acquired through by real-time monitoring to prevent overload of said power supply unit, said at least one control processor couples a power equivalent of said first power supply to at least one data storage device if actively servicing Input-Output (IO) requests, and couples a power equivalent of said at least second power supply to a remaining portion of said plurality of data storage devices that are neither servicing IO or spinning up.

1 more element

A method for controlling power budget in a data storage system, comprising the steps of:

(a) housing a plurality of data storage devices, temperature sensors, at least one fan module, at least one Central Processor Unit (CPU), at least one expander operatively coupled to said at least one CPU, at least one interposer operatively coupled between said at least one expander and a respective one of said plurality of data storage devices in a drive enclosure,
(b) positioning a redundantly configured power supply unit in said drive enclosure, said power supply unit including a first power supply and at least a second power supply operated together to cumulatively meet power requirements for said drive enclosure operation,
(c) incorporating at least one control processor in said drive enclosure, and operatively coupling said at least one control processor to said at least one CPU, said temperature sensors, said at least one interposer, said respective data storage device, and said first and at least second power supplies,
(d) monitoring, in real time, by said at least one control processor, said temperature sensors, load of said first and at least second power supplies and load of said plurality of data storage devices, and
(e) dynamically adjusting a mode of operation of at least one of said plurality of data storage devices in correspondence with information obtained during said monitoring procedure to avoid overload of said power supply unit, responsive to an elevated temperature condition being detected, increasing said at least one fan module speed.

2 more elements

A data storage system with power budget control, comprising:

a plurality of data storage devices,
a drive enclosure populated with said plurality of data storage devices,
a plurality of interposers, each operatively coupled to a respective one of said plurality of data storage devices to monitor, in real time, power consumed by said respective data storage device,
a redundantly configured power supply unit positioned within said drive enclosure, said power supply unit including a first low wattage power supply and at least a second low wattage power supply together sharing a power load of said drive enclosure and cumulatively meeting power requirements of said drive enclosure, and
at least one control processor positioned in said drive enclosure in operative connection with said plurality of data storage devices, said redundantly configured power supply unit, and said plurality of interposers, wherein said each interposer provides information concerning said power consumed by said respective data storage device to said at least one control processor, and
wherein said at least one control processor is configured to monitor, in real time, a power level available from said redundantly configured power supply unit and power consumed by each of said respective data storage devices, and to dynamically adjust a mode of operation of at least one said respective data storage device to prevent overload in said drive enclosure, said each interposer further including a processor executable power supply and monitoring module operatively coupled to said first and at least second power supplies to monitor power status lines of each of said first and at least second power supplies, said at least one control processor being configured to process information acquired from said each interposer to determine load of said drive enclosure and to dynamically adjust mode of operation of at least one of said plurality of data storage devices accordingly.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.