Method and system for governing an enterprise level green storage system drive technique

A non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising a first plurality of machine-readable instructions which when executed by one or more processors associated with a disk controller are adapted to cause the one or more processors to perform a method comprising:

• monitoring a first number of first input/output (I/O) requests directed to a first disk drive during a given time interval;
• determining that the first disk drive is inactive based on the first number of the first I/O requests;
• monitoring a second number of second I/O requests directed to a second disk drive during the given time interval;
• determining that the second disk drive is active based on the second number of the second I/O requests;
• moving data from the first disk drive to the second disk drive;
• updating volume mapping information associated with the moved data to indicate that the moved data may be accessed on the second disk drive;
• and
• conserving power by spinning down the first disk drive.

A disk controller comprising:

• a processor;
• a first memory for storing metadata associated with a first disk drive and a second disk drive coupled to the disk controller;
• and
• a second memory having to set of instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to:
• monitor first input/output (I/O) requests for a first disk drive;
• determine that the first disk drive is inactive based on a first number of first I/O requests directed to the first disk drive for a given time interval;
• monitor second I/O requests for a second disk drive;
• determine that the second disk drive is active based on a second number of second I/O requests directed to the second disk drive for the given time interval;
• copy data from the first disk drive to the second disk drive;
• update metadata associated with the data to indicate that the data may be accessed on the second disk drive;
• and
• spin down the first disk drive to conserve power.