Intelligent storage engine for disk drive operations with reduced local bus traffic

• US 20060143316A1
• Filed: 12/22/2005
• Published: 06/29/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Original Assignee: Netcell Corp.
• Inventors: Mills, Andy, Fischer, Kent P.
• Granted Patent: US 7,395,358 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 710/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1092 Rebuilding, e.g. when physically replacing a failing disk
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/061 Improving I/O performance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0658 Controller construction arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD

Abstract

For attached disk drive operations such a file copy and move, as well as more elaborate processes such as searching, virus-scanning and volume merge, a novel intelligent storage engine concept is disclosed. In one embodiment, a storage engine (40), utilizing local processor intelligence, and accessed through a suitable driver (60) and API (App. B), carries out disk access operations without burdening the host CPU (22) and without imposing data traffic on the local CPU bus (34), except for returning results data in an appropriate case.

Claims

1. An intelligent storage engine apparatus for reducing host bus traffic in connection with attached storage operations comprising:

a host interface for receiving a predetermined instruction or function call from a host application;

a drive interface to coupling the engine to at least one attached disk drive for data transfers; and

a processor on board the storage engine for effecting data transfers with the attached storage device(s) responsive to the received instruction;

the storage engine arranged for effecting said data transfers with the attached storage device(s) without placing user data on the host bus or host serial link.

2. A storage engine apparatus according to claim 1 wherein the drive interface comprises a drive switch for configurable connection to multiple disk drives.

3. A storage engine apparatus according to claim 1 including a DMA component for DMA transfers with the attached host.

4. A storage engine apparatus according to claim 1 and arranged to receive a data movement or processing instruction from the host CPU via a predetermined applications programming interface (API).

5. A storage engine apparatus according to claim 1 including a local cache memory for temporary storage of user data.

6. A storage engine apparatus according to claim 1 including means for scanning data in a selected file stream on the fly and matching that scanning data against a predetermined reference sequence.

7. A method of executing disk drive operations with reduced local bus traffic, the method comprising:

defining at least one host application function that requires access to at least one disk drive and having a corresponding function call;

implementing the said function call in a storage engine apparatus;

interfacing the storage engine apparatus to a host local bus and to at least one attached disk drive;

monitoring the local bus so as to detect the said function call when asserted; and

responsive to the detected function call, executing the corresponding function in the storage engine apparatus without placing user data on the local bus;

and after completion returning a result of the executed function over the local bus.

8. A method of executing disk drive operations according to claim 7 wherein the host application functions implemented in the storage engine include file copy and file move operations.

9. A method of executing disk drive operations according to claim 7 including

executing operations within the host software to complete the OS call operation by circumventing the standard built-in operating kernel system file caching software layers and hardware interface function calls, and instead sending at least one corresponding command directly to the storage engine.

10. A method according to claim 7 including moving data between two disk drives without loading the host local bus or serial connection.

11. A method of executing disk drive operations according to claim 7 including:

providing a file system filter module for monitoring commands to the operating system file system;

checking in the file system filter module whether a given command is directed to a disk drive currently attached to the storage engine; and

if a command is directed to an attached disk drive, and if the command is recognized by the filter module as one of a predetermined set of commands it can process, then intercepting the command for processing in the storage engine.

12. A method according to claim 11 including providing periodic information to the host on the status of the operation, queuing status of the requested operation, and providing an overall result when the operation is completed.

13. A method according to claim 11 wherein the final result comprises an indication to the host indicating that the requested operation did not complete or that the operation was completed successfully.

14. A method according to claim 11 wherein the final result comprises delivery of requested result data.

15. A method according to claim 11 wherein operation comprises one of a file move from a first disk drive to a second disk drive, a file copy operation, a disk volume merge, a virus scan, a RAID drive-array rebuild.

16. A method according to claim 11 wherein the operation comprises a search of stored user data.

17. A method of executing disk drive operations with reduced local bus traffic, the method comprising.

defining at least one application function that requires access to at least one disk drive;

implementing the said function in a storage engine apparatus having a local processor and local memory;

interfacing the storage engine apparatus to a host local bus and to at least one attached disk drive;

receiving a function call from an application program via a predetermined API;

responsive to the received function call, executing the corresponding function in the storage engine apparatus without placing user data on the local bus, said execution including accessing said at least one attached disk drive;

and after completion returning a result of the executed function to the application program.

18. A method according to claim 17 wherein the application program is an anti-virus application.

19. A method according to claim 17 wherein the API includes disk block operations.

20. A method according to claim 17 wherein the API includes searching operations.