Patent application number | Description | Published |
20140047136 | LOCALIZED DEVICE MISSING DELAY TIMERS IN SAS/SATA TOPOLOGY - A SAS expander includes DMD timers for each PHY so that the expander can track disconnected devices directly connected to the expander and signal a SAS controller when the DMD is exceeded. A system including such SAS expanders may reduce the load on the system controller. A controller may recognize expanders capable of tracking DMDs for backwards compatibility. | 02-13-2014 |
20140122744 | METHODS AND STRUCTURE FOR PERFORMING A REBUILD OF A LOGICAL VOLUME WITH A SERIAL ATTACHED SCSI EXPANDER - Methods and structure are provided for performing a rebuild using a Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) expander. The SAS expander includes an SMP target operable to receive, from a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) controller, a Serial Management Protocol (SMP) command for initiating a rebuild of a RAID volume at the SAS expander. The SAS expander also includes a control unit operable to initiate a rebuild of the RAID volume based on the received SMP command from the controller, and a Serial SCSI Protocol (SSP) initiator operable to generate SSP commands for performing the RAID rebuild based upon input from the control unit. | 05-01-2014 |
20140122761 | METHODS AND STRUCTURE FOR SERIAL ATTACHED SCSI EXPANDERS THAT SELF-CONFIGURE ROUTING ATTRIBUTES OF THEIR PORTS - Methods and structure are provided for Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) expanders that program their own routing attributes. The structure includes a SAS expander comprising multiple physical links with associated transceivers (PHYs), wherein the PHYs are configured into ports at the expander, and a memory that defines routing attributes for each of the ports. The SAS expander also comprises a control unit that is operable to detect a discovery Serial Management Protocol (SMP) request received at a port of the expander, and that is further operable to set the routing attribute for the port to subtractive routing responsive to detecting the SMP request. | 05-01-2014 |
20140122798 | METHODS AND STRUCTURE ESTABLISHING NESTED REDUNDANT ARRAY OF INDEPENDENT DISKS VOLUMES WITH AN EXPANDER - Methods and structure are provided for provisioning a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) volume via an expander that can be used to provision a RAID volume managed by an external RAID controller. The structure includes a Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) expander. The expander comprises physical links with transceivers (PHYs) that directly couple with storage devices, a protocol target and a control unit. The control unit provisions a first RAID volume with multiple storage devices that are directly coupled with the PHYs, and is further masks the storage devices from a SAS domain, by presenting the PHYs directly coupled with the multiple storage devices as a single PHY coupled with a single logical device. The control unit is also operable to provision a portion of a second RAID volume on the logical device in response to the expander receiving a command from a RAID controller. | 05-01-2014 |
20140325146 | CREATING AND MANAGING LOGICAL VOLUMES FROM UNUSED SPACE IN RAID DISK GROUPS - Methods and structure are provided for creating and managing unused storage capacity in Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) systems. One embodiment is a RAID controller that includes a controller operable to create and manage a logical volume out of storage space that would otherwise not be used by a RAID system. The logical volume is then exposed to the host operating system as a logical volume where the storage space can be used as a cache device for a host operating system. | 10-30-2014 |
20140337650 | System and Method for Power Management in a Multiple-Initiator Storage System - The disclosure is directed to a system and method for managing a plurality of storage devices. In an embodiment, at least one enclosure is configured to contain or support a plurality of storage devices accessible by a plurality of initiators. The enclosure further includes or is coupled to a power management controller in communication with the plurality of storage devices. The power management controller is configured to switch one or more storage devices of the plurality of storage devices from a first activity state to a second activity state when the one or more storage devices receive less than a selected number of data transfer requests over a specified time interval, where the one or more storage devices consume less power in the second activity state than in the first activity state. | 11-13-2014 |
20140359266 | OPTIMIZING BOOT TIME OF A STORAGE SYSTEM - Systems and methods herein provide a storage system that optimizes the boot time when the storage system is rebooted. One embodiment includes a storage controller operable to determine a topology of one or more storage devices. The storage controller stores the topology in memory. When the storage controller detects a system reboot event, it provides the stored topology to the host and directs the host to reboot with the stored topology. | 12-04-2014 |
20150015987 | Prioritized Spin-Up of Drives - A data storage system controller designates critical drives for staggered spin up and other, non-critical drives for spin up only when the controller notifies the appropriate expander. Each expander in the data storage system maintains configuration information for each PHY of the expander and reports completion of spin up when all of the drives designated “staggered spin up” have been spun up. Alternatively, an expander maintains PHY configuration data, designating each PHY as “staggered spin up,” “host notify” or “disabled.” At boot time, only devices connected to PHYs designated “staggered spin up” are spun up in cycles before reporting spin up completion to a host device. | 01-15-2015 |
20150019818 | Maintaining Cache Size Proportional to Power Pack Charge - The present disclosure is directed to a method for managing a cache based on a charge of a power source. The method includes the step of determining a charge of the power source at a first time instance. The method also includes the step of designating for write back cache an amount of data in the cache which can be offloaded from the cache based on the charge of the power source at the first time instance. The method also includes the step of designating as write through cache an amount of data remaining in the cache which was not designated as write back cache. | 01-15-2015 |
20150058557 | Performance Improvements in Input / Output Operations Between a Host System and an Adapter-Coupled Cache - A modified or host driver operable on a host computer communicates with a host interface of a PCIe adapter. A controller memory space is managed by the kernel space of the host operating system. The modified driver entirely avoids the overhead associated with making a copy from the application or user space to a separate kernel space managed by the operating system in the host computer. The modified driver uses a base address register to identify the location of the cache storage in the controller memory space. The size of the cache store is communicated to the modified driver upon a power on initialization of the PCIe adapter and the host computer. A memory map managed by the modified driver identifies cache storage locations as an offset from the base address register. | 02-26-2015 |
20150067253 | INPUT/OUTPUT REQUEST SHIPPING IN A STORAGE SYSTEM WITH MULTIPLE STORAGE CONTROLLERS - Systems and methods presented herein provide for input/output shipping between storage controllers in a storage system. One storage system comprises a plurality of logical volumes, a host driver operable to process input/output requests to the logical volumes, and a plurality of storage controllers coupled between the server and the logical volumes. A first of storage controllers is operable to receive an input/output request from the host driver for one of the logical volumes, and transfer a command to a second of the storage controllers to retrieve the data of the input/output request. The second storage controller processes the command from the first storage controller, and retrieves the data associated with the input/output request. | 03-05-2015 |
20150089132 | DYNAMIC STORAGE VOLUME CONFIGURATION BASED ON INPUT/OUTPUT REQUESTS - A storage system includes a plurality hard disk drives and a plurality of solid-state drives and a storage controller operable to manage the hard disk drives and solid-state drives as a plurality of logical volumes, and categorize input/output requests to the logical volumes into types based on sizes of the input/output requests (e.g., smaller and larger). The storage controller is also operable to reconfigure the logical volumes from the hard disk drives and the solid-state drives based on the types of the input/output requests to the logical volumes. A first of the reconfigured logical volumes occupies a first portion of at least one of the solid-state drives and a first portion of at least one of the hard disk drives. The storage controller is further operable to direct the first type of the input/output requests to the first portion of the solid-state drive occupied by the first reconfigured logical volume. | 03-26-2015 |