Background processing of data in a storage system

• US 20070260815A1
• Filed: 03/09/2007
• Published: 11/08/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/03/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: COPAN Systems, Inc. (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Guha, Aloke, Santilli, Christopher
• Granted Patent: US 7,380,060 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/114
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3268 Power saving in hard disk drive
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3287 by switching off individual functional units in the computer system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1008 in individual solid state devices G06F11/1004 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1425 by reconfiguration of node membership
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1662 the resynchronized component or unit being a persistent storage device re-synchronization of failed mirror storage G06F11/2082; rebuild or reconstruction of parity RAID storage G06F11/1008
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2094 Redundant storage or storage space G06F11/2056 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0623 in relation to content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0625 Power saving in storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0634 by changing the state or mode of one or more devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0646 Horizontal data movement in storage systems, i.e. moving data in between storage devices or systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A method for processing data on a particular storage device in a plurality of storage devices is disclosed. A system and a computer program product for processing data on a particular storage device in a plurality of storage devices are also disclosed. All the storage devices from among the plurality of storage devices are not powered-on at the same time. A storage device, which is powered-off is selected for background processing. Further, a data-enhancing operation is selected. The selected storage device is powered on and the selected data-enhancing operation is processed on the storage device.

Claims

1-30. -30. (canceled)

31. A method for processing data on a particular storage device in a plurality of storage devices, the method comprising:

selecting a data enhancing operation for data on the particular storage device;

determining that the particular storage device is powered off;

powering on the particular storage device; and

performing the data enhancing operation on the particular storage device.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the data enhancing operation comprises a storage operation.

33. The method of claim 32, wherein the storage operation comprises a RAID calculation.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the RAID calculation includes a parity determination.

35. The method of claim 31, further comprising:

performing a compression operation on the data.

36. The method of claim 35, further comprising:

determining that no input/output activity is occurring.

37. The method of claim 35, further comprising:

determining that there are sufficient processing resources to perform the compression operation.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein processing resources includes processor cycles.

39. The method of claim 37, wherein processing resources includes memory.

40. The method of claim 37, wherein processing resources includes transmission bandwidth.

41. The method of claim 37, further comprising:

determining whether there are sufficient energy resources to initiate the background processing on the storage devices.

42. The method of claim 35, wherein the compression operation includes at least one of a lossless compression operation and global compression operation.

43. The method of claim 35, further comprising:

writing compressed data to the particular storage device.

44. The method of claim 31, further comprising:

performing an integrity checking operation on the data.

45. The method of claim 44, further comprising:

forming a hash value from at least a portion of the data; and

checking the hash value against a predetermined value.

46. The method of claim 45, further comprising:

if the hash value is not the same as the predetermined value then obtaining correct data; and

storing the correct data on the storage device.

47. The method of claim 46, wherein the correct data is obtained from a cache.

48. The method of claim 46, wherein the correct data is obtained from a backup copy.

49. The method of claim 31, further comprising:

creating an index of the data.

50. The method of claim 49, further comprising:

using the index in a keyword search.

51. The method of claim 31, further comprising:

performing a data search.

52. The method of claim 31, wherein powering-on the particular storage device comprises the step of checking a power budget.

53. A system for processing data on a particular storage device in a plurality of storage devices, the system comprising:

a selection module for selecting a data-enhancing operation from a set of operations comprising compression, data-integrity check, data-reliability test, object index preparation, and content search;

a power-check module for checking the power status on a storage device selected from the plurality of storage devices;

an activation module for powering-on the selected storage device; and

a data-enhancing activation module for processing the selected data-enhancing operation.

54. The system of claim 53, wherein the data enhancing module comprising:

a compression module for processing the compression operation in case compression operation is selected for data-enhancement;

an integrity-check module for checking the integrity of the data stored in the selected storage device;

an index-creating module for creating an index for a portion of the data stored with the selected storage device; and

a data-search module for performing an efficient search, the data search can utilize the index created by the index-creating module.

55. The system of claim 54, wherein the compression module performs a compression operation selected from a group consisting of lossless compression and global compression.

56. The system of claim 54, wherein the compression module comprises:

an activity-check module for checking if any activity is being performed on the selected storage device;

a resource-check module for determining if sufficient resources are available for processing compression operation, the resources comprising energy resources, processing resources, and bandwidth resources; and

a writing module for writing the compressed data on the selected storage device.

57. The system of claim 54, wherein the integrating check module comprises:

a hash-generating module for generating hashes for the selected portion of the data;

a hash-comparing module for comparing the generated hash with a predetermined hash value;

a data-extraction module for extracting a correct copy of data in case the predetermined hash value does not match with the generated hash value; and

a writing module for writing the extracted data on the selected storage device.

58. A system for processing data on a particular storage device in a plurality of storage devices, the system comprising:

means for selecting a data enhancing operation for data on the particular storage device;

means for determining that the particular storage device is powered off;

means for powering on the particular storage device; and

means for performing the data enhancing operation on the particular storage device.

59. A computer-readable medium including instructions executable by a processor processing data on a particular storage device in a plurality of storage devices, the computer-readable medium comprising:

one or more instructions for selecting a data enhancing operation for data on the particular storage device;

one or more instructions for determining that the particular storage device is powered off;

one or more instructions for powering on the particular storage device; and

one or more instructions for performing the data enhancing operation on the particular storage device.

60. An apparatus for processing data on a particular storage device in a plurality of storage devices, the apparatus comprising:

a processor for executing instructions; and

a machine-readable medium including;

one or more instructions for selecting a data enhancing operation for data on the particular storage device;

one or more instructions for determining that the particular storage device is powered off;

one or more instructions for powering on the particular storage device; and

one or more instructions for performing the data enhancing operation on the particular storage device.