Disk array device

• US 20060039108A1
• Filed: 10/29/2004
• Published: 02/23/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/20/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Chikusa, Takashi, Hori, Masanori, Tachibana, Toshio, Maki, Takehiro, Honma, Hirotaka
• Granted Patent: US 7,139,170 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 361/695
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/20 Cooling means
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 33/126 Arrangements for providing electrical connections, e.g. connectors, cables, switches
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 33/128 of the plurality of recording/reproducing devices, e.g. disk drives, onto a chassis

Abstract

In a disk array device for cooling respective sections including a HDD by a fan, drop of cooling efficiency by the difference of conditions of HDD mounted and unmounted sections is prevented and the use of a dummy HDD is deleted/eliminated. A housing contains a HDA mounted on the HDD, a power controller board for performing control to the HDD, a power unit for supplying power to each section, a fan for cooling the housing therein, and a backboard for connecting all the sections. On one backboard surface, the HDA is mounted, which has a cooling function for making cooling air flowing in the housing and exhausting air from the housing via a region on which the HDA are mounted and via a vent hole on the backboard. For the vent hole, a shutter is mounted, which has a mechanism for adjusting an open area rate of the vent hole by opening when the HDA is mounted and closing when removed.

Claims

1. A disk array device comprising:

a storage unit;

a controller for controlling storage of data into said storage unit;

a power unit for supplying power to each section;

a fan for air cooling an interior of a housing;

a backboard for connecting each section, the storage unit being connected to one surface of the backboard through a connector;

a cooling function of allowing cooling air to flow into the housing by an operation of said fan and exhausting the cooling air from the housing via a region to which said storage unit is installed and a vent hole provided in said backboard; and

a shutter having a mechanism which corresponds to the vent hole of said backboard and in which an open area rate of said vent hole is adjusted by opening in accordance with mounting of said storage unit and closing in accordance with unmounting thereof.

2. The disk array device according to claim 1,

wherein said housing has a construction in which a region where a plurality of said storage units are mounted in a row is arranged on one side of the housing through the backboard in-between and said fan and said power unit arranged on the other side, and

has a vent passage in which said cooling air flows by an operation of said fan from a side of a surface on which said storage unit of the housing is mounted and is exhausted from a side of a surface mounted on said fan and said power unit of the housing.

3. The disk array device according to claim 1,

wherein said vent hole is provided in units of a mounting location of said storage unit and said shutter is provided in units of said vent hole.

4. The disk array device according to claim 1,

wherein said shutter has such a construction as to keep part of a region of said vent hole open with said shutter being closed to the maximum under an unmounted condition of said storage unit, and, by the construction of said shutter, volumes of the cooling air at a mounted section of said storage unit and that of at an unmounted section are adjusted so as to be almost the same.

5. The disk array device according to claim 1,

wherein said shutter has a construction in which an area closing said vent hole is designed in such a manner that a volume of the cooling air at a mounted section of said storage unit is greater than that at an unmounted section.

6. The disk array device according to claim 1,

wherein said shutter has a mechanism of being opened/closed like a door and of being open-pushed by a convex structure provided on a side of a backboard connection surface of said storage unit when said storage unit is mounted.

7. The disk array device according to claim 1,

wherein said shutter is arranged and formed to guide flow of the cooling air in accordance with arrangement of a cooled object portion before and after said vent hole.

8. The disk array device according to claim 1,

wherein said shutter has a mechanism of being opened by such motion that a convex structure provided on a surface of said backboard, on which said storage unit is mounted, is pressed by said storage unit when said storage unit is mounted.

9. The disk array device according to claim 1,

wherein said shutter has such a vent-passage configuration as to be provided to a support structure provided behind said backboard in the housing and to seal a region from the vent hole of said backboard to the shutter provided to said support structure.

10. The disk array device according to claim 1,

wherein said shutter has such a mechanism as to be provided to a guide portion for mounting said storage unit in a region located on a side on which said storage unit is mounted in the housing and to open by insertion of said storage unit and close by its removal.

11. The disk array device according to claim 1, further comprising:

a rectifying means being so that, at a boundary portion between a mounted section and an unmounted section of said storage unit in the housing, a region of the vent passage corresponding to a mounting position of said storage unit is formed into a conduit construction independent from an adjacent region.

12. The disk array device according to claim 1,

wherein said shutter is provided so as to correspond to both the vent hole corresponding to mounting and cooling of said storage unit and other vent hole other than it on said backboard, and

a volume of the cooling air at said other vent hole is controlled by opening and closing said shutter in accordance with a mounting condition of said storage unit.

13. A disk array device comprising:

a storage unit;

a controller for controlling storage of data into said storage unit;

a power unit for supplying power to each section;

a fan for air cooling an interior of a housing;

a backboard for connecting each section, the storage unit being connected to one surface of the backboard through a connector;

a cooling function of allowing cooling air to flow into the housing by an operation of said fan and exhausting the cooling air from the housing via a region to which said storage unit is installed and a vent hole provided in said backboard;

a shutter having a mechanism which corresponds to the vent hole of said backboard and in which an open area rate of said vent hole is adjusted by opening in accordance with mounting of said storage unit and closing in accordance with unmounting thereof; and

a control means for adjusting a volume of said cooling air by controlling the open area rate of said vent hole in accordance with judgment of a device condition related to cooling.

14. The disk array device according to claim 13,

wherein said control means controls the open area rate of said vent hole in combination with control of a fan rotating speed using said fan based on the judgment of the device condition related to said cooling.

15. The disk array device according to claim 13,

wherein said shutter is provided so as to correspond to both the vent hole corresponding to mounting and cooling of said storage unit and other vent hole other than it on said backboard, and

a volume of the cooling air at said other vent hole is controlled by opening and closing said shutter in accordance with the judgment of the device condition.

16. The disk array device according to claim 13,

wherein said control means comprises:

a shutter opening/closing section located near said backboard and carrying out an operation of adjusting the opening/closing of said shutter;

a processing section for controlling an operation of said shutter opening/closing section in accordance with the judgment of said device condition.

17. The disk array device according to claim 16,

wherein said power unit has said processing section and judges a power condition in the housing, as the device condition related to the cooling.

18. The disk array device according to claim 16,

wherein said control unit has said processing section and judges a device load condition and a condition related to mounting and operating of said storage unit, as the device condition related to said cooling.

19. The disk array device according to claim 16,

wherein said shutter has a mechanism for making opening/closing operations on a back side of said backboard, and

said shutter opening/closing section has a slide portion for making a slide operation in parallel to a surface of said backboard, and has a mechanism for opening and closing said shutter by contact of said slide portion with said shutter located on a back surface side of said backboard.

20. The disk array device according to claim 16,

wherein said power unit includes:

a fan on a back surface side of the housing;

said shutter opening/closing section on a connection surface side of the backboard; and

a circuit for controlling an operation of said fan and said shutter opening/closing section by a control signal as said processing section.