Member replacement in an array of information storage devices

• US 10,146,651 B2
• Filed: 11/10/2016
• Issued: 12/04/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Joshi, Neeraj, Karrotu, Vishnu M., Chakkravarthy, Kavi K.
• Primary Examiner(s): GUYTON, PHILIP A
• Application Number:
  US15/348,433
• Publication Number:
  US 20170060712A1
• Time in Patent Office: 754 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2094 Redundant storage or storage space G06F11/2056 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3034 where the computing system component is a storage system, e.g. DASD based or network based digital input from or digital output to record carriers G06F3/06; digital recording or reproducing G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3442 for planning or managing the needed capacity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/805 Real-time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/81 Threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0629 Configuration or reconfiguration of storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD

Abstract

An information handling system includes a method for detecting a predictive failure indication for a predictive failure indicated physical disk of a disk group, determining an amount of used storage capacity of a lowest capacity physical disk of the disk group, and comparing a replacement storage capacity of a replacement physical disk to the used storage capacity. When the replacement storage capacity is greater than or equal to the used storage capacity even if the replacement storage capacity is less than a lowest storage capacity of the lowest capacity physical disk of the disk group, replacing the predictive failure indicated physical disk with the replacement physical disk.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

detecting a predictive failure indication for a predictive failure indicated physical storage device of a storage device group in an information storage subsystem;

determining an amount of used storage capacity of a lowest capacity physical storage device of the storage device group;

comparing a replacement storage capacity of a replacement physical storage device to the used storage capacity;

when the replacement storage capacity is greater than or equal to the used storage capacity, replacing the predictive failure indicated physical storage device with the replacement physical storage device; and

when a higher capacity replacement physical storage device having a higher capacity than the lowest storage capacity becomes available, replacing the replacement physical storage device with the higher capacity replacement physical storage device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

when the replacement storage capacity is not greater than or equal to the used storage capacity, preventing replacement of the predictive failure indicated physical storage device with the replacement physical storage device.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

comparing the replacement storage capacity to a lowest storage capacity of a lowest capacity physical storage device of the storage device group; and

when the replacement storage capacity is greater than or equal to the lowest storage capacity, replacing the predictive failure indicated physical storage device with the replacement physical storage device.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether the replacement physical storage device is of a compatible type exhibiting compatibility with a type of the predictive failure indicated physical storage device; and

when the replacement physical storage device is not of the compatible type exhibiting compatibility with the type of the predictive failure indicated physical storage device, preventing replacement of the predictive failure indicated physical storage device with the replacement physical storage device.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the replacing the replacement physical storage device with the higher capacity replacement physical storage device is performed in absence of a fault indication for the replacement physical storage device.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the comparing the replacement storage capacity to the lowest storage capacity is performed before the comparing the replacement storage capacity of the replacement physical storage device to the used storage capacity.

7. An information handling system comprising:

a storage device group including an array of physical storage devices, the physical storage devices including a predictive failure indicated physical storage device and a lowest capacity physical storage device; and

a storage device controller coupled to the storage device group, the storage device controller configured to detect a predictive failure indication for the predictive failure indicated physical storage device of the storage device group, to determine an amount of used storage capacity of the lowest capacity physical storage device of the storage device group, to compare a replacement storage capacity of a replacement physical storage device to the used storage capacity, and when the replacement storage capacity is greater than or equal to the used storage capacity even if the replacement storage capacity is less than a lowest storage capacity of the lowest capacity physical storage device of the storage device group, to replace the predictive failure indicated physical storage device with the replacement physical storage device,

wherein the storage device controller is further configured, when a higher capacity replacement physical storage device having a higher capacity than the lowest storage capacity becomes available, to replace the replacement physical storage device with the higher capacity replacement physical storage device.

8. The information handling system of claim 7, wherein the storage device controller is further configured, when the replacement storage capacity is not greater than or equal to the used storage capacity, to prevent replacement of the predictive failure indicated physical storage device with the replacement physical storage device.

9. The information handling system of claim 7, wherein the storage device controller is further configured to compare the replacement storage capacity to the lowest storage capacity, and when the replacement storage capacity is greater than or equal to the lowest storage capacity, to replace the predictive failure indicated physical storage device with the replacement physical storage device.

10. The information handling system of claim 7, wherein the storage device controller is further configured to determine whether the replacement physical storage device is of a compatible type exhibiting compatibility with a type of the predictive failure indicated physical storage device, and when the replacement physical storage device is not of the compatible type exhibiting compatibility with the type of the predictive failure indicated physical storage device, to prevent replacement of the predictive failure indicated physical storage device with the replacement physical storage device.

11. The information handling system of claim 7, wherein storage device controller is configured to replace the replacement physical storage device with the higher capacity replacement physical storage device in absence of a fault indication for the replacement physical storage device.

12. The information handling system of claim 7, wherein the storage device controller is configured to compare the replacement storage capacity to the lowest storage capacity before comparing the replacement storage capacity of the replacement physical storage device to the used storage capacity.

13. The information handling system of claim 7, wherein the predictive failure indicated physical storage device includes a disk.

14. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instruction code executable by a processor to cause the processor to:

detect a predictive failure indication for a predictive failure indicated physical storage device of a storage device group in an information storage subsystem;

determine an amount of used storage capacity of a lowest capacity physical storage device of the storage device group;

compare a replacement storage capacity of a replacement physical storage device to the used storage capacity;

when the replacement storage capacity is greater than or equal to the used storage capacity even if the replacement storage capacity is less than a lowest storage capacity of the lowest capacity physical storage device of the storage device group, to replace the predictive failure indicated physical storage device with the replacement physical storage device;

when a higher capacity replacement physical storage device having a higher capacity than the lowest storage capacity becomes available, to replace the replacement physical storage device with the higher capacity replacement physical storage device; and

replace the replacement physical storage device with the higher capacity replacement physical storage device is performed in absence of a fault indication for the replacement physical storage device.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, further comprising instruction code executable by the processor to cause the processor, when the replacement storage capacity is not greater than or equal to the used storage capacity, to prevent replacement of the predictive failure indicated physical storage device with the replacement physical storage device.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, further comprising instruction code executable by the processor to cause the processor to compare the replacement storage capacity to the lowest storage capacity, and when the replacement storage capacity is greater than or equal to the lowest storage capacity, to replace the predictive failure indicated physical storage device with the replacement physical storage device.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, further comprising instruction code executable by the processor to cause the processor to determine whether the replacement physical storage device is of a compatible type exhibiting compatibility with a type of the predictive failure indicated physical storage device, and when the replacement physical storage device is not of the compatible type exhibiting compatibility with the type of the predictive failure indicated physical storage device, to prevent replacement of the predictive failure indicated physical storage device with the replacement physical storage device.