Method and Apparatus for Power-Efficient High-Capacity Scalable Storage System
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Systems and methods for providing scalable, reliable, power-efficient, high-capacity data storage, wherein large numbers of closely packed data drives having corresponding metadata and parity volumes are individually powered on and off, depending upon their respective usage. In one embodiment, the invention is implemented in a RAID-type data storage system which employs a large number of hard disk drives that are individually controlled, so that only the disk drives that are in use are powered on. The reduced power consumption allows the disk drives to be contained in a smaller enclosure than would conventionally be possible. In a preferred embodiment, the data protection scheme is designed to utilize large, contiguous blocks of space on the data disk drives, and to use the space on one data disk drive at a time, so that the data disk drives which are not in use can be powered down.
86 Citations
58 Claims
-
1-39. -39. (canceled)
-
40. A system comprising:
-
a single set of data storage drives, the single set including a plurality of data storage drives; and
a controller configured to selectively power cycle one or more storage drives in the single set of data storage drives from a first power state to a second power state without power cycling other data storage drives in the single set at the first power state to the second power state. - View Dependent Claims (41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46)
-
-
47. A method for selectively powering on and powering down data storage drives in a single set of data storage drives, the method comprising:
-
determining a data storage drive in a first power state in the single set of data storage drives, wherein the single set of storage drives includes data storage drives in a first power state and a second power state; and
changing the data storage drive from the first power state to a second power state without changing power states of other data storage drives in the single set of data storage drives. - View Dependent Claims (48, 49, 50, 51)
-
-
52. A controller comprising:
-
a processor; and
logic, when executed by the processor, operable to selectively power cycle one or more storage drives in a single set of data storage drives from a first power state to a second power state without power cycling other data storage drives in the single set at the first power state to the second power state. - View Dependent Claims (53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58)
-
Specification