Accelerated resume from hibernation in a cached disk system

• US 20090327608A1
• Filed: 06/26/2008
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SK Hynix NAND Product Solutions Corporation (SK Hynix Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Allen, Wayne, Eschmann, Michael K.
• Granted Patent: US 8,621,144 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/118
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3221 of disk drive devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3268 Power saving in hard disk drive
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1441 Resetting or repowering
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0804 with main memory updating G06F12/0806 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0866 for peripheral storage systems, e.g. disk cache
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/2022 Flash memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4418 Suspend and resume; Hibernate and awake
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Various embodiments of the invention use a non-volatile (NV) memory to store hiberfile data before entering a hibernate state, and retrieve the data upon resume from hibernation. Unlike conventional systems, the reserve space in the NV memory (i.e., the erased blocks available to be used while in the run-time mode) may be used to store hiberfile data. Further, a write-through cache policy may be used to assure that all of the hiberfile data saved in cache will also be stored on the disk drive during the hibernation, so that if the cache and the disk drive are separated during hibernation, the full correct hiberfile data will still be available for a resume operation.

Claims

1. A computer system, comprising:

a processor;

a disk drive coupled to the processor; and

a non-volatile (NV) memory coupled to the disk drive to operate as a cache memory for the disk drive during runtime operations and to operate as a storage for hiberfile data during a low power state;

wherein a reserve space in the NV memory during runtime operations is to be used as storage for at least a part of the hiberfile data.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the NV memory is to use a write-through cache policy when writing the hiberfile data into the NV memory and the disk drive.

3. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the NV memory comprises a NAND flash memory.

4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the NV memory is to cache more hiberfile data than requested to be pinned in the NV memory by the operating system.

5. The computer system of claim 1, wherein at least one memory block of the NV memory is to contain a table to map hiberfile data to the memory blocks containing the hiberfile data.

6. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the disk drive and the NV memory are physically separable from each other during the low power state.

7. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising a battery to power the NV memory.

8. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising a wireless communications controller coupled to the processor.

9. An apparatus, comprising:

a non-volatile (NV) memory to be coupled to a disk drive to operate as a cache memory for the disk drive during runtime operations and to operate as a storage for hiberfile data during a low power state;

wherein a reserve space in the NV memory during runtime operations is to be used as storage for at least a part of the hiberfile data.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the NV memory is to use a write-through cache policy when writing the hiberfile data into the NV memory and into the disk drive.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the NV memory comprises a NAND flash memory.

12. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the NV memory is to cache more hiberfile data than requested by the operating system.

13. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein at least one memory block of the NV memory is to contain a table to map hiberfile data to the memory blocks containing the hiberfile data.

14. A method, comprising:

using a non-volatile (NV) memory as a disk cache during runtime operations in a computer system having a disk drive; and

using the NV memory to store hiberfile data during a low power state of the computer system, wherein the NV memory is to use a reserve space in the NV memory as storage for at least a part of the hiberfile data.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising using a write-through cache policy to write the hiberfile data to the NV memory and to the disk drive.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising resuming operation from the low power state, said resuming comprising reading said hiberfile data from the disk drive, responsive to either of:

1) a write failure when writing the hiberfile data to the NV memory before entering the low power state, or

     2) a read failure during said attempting to read the hiberfile data from the NV memory.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising resuming operation from the low power state, said resuming comprising copying an address of a hiberfile mapping table to a new location in the NV memory, the new location to be used if a power failure during the resume operation causes the resume operation to be retried.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein the NV memory is to store more pinned hiberfile data than requested by the operating system.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein said using the NV memory to store hiberfile data comprises using a table to map hiberfile data to available memory blocks in the NV memory.

20. The method of claim 14, further comprising physically replacing one of the NV memory and the disk drive in the computer system during the low power state.

21. An article comprising

a tangible machine-readable medium that contains instructions, which when executed by one or more processors result in performing operations comprising:

using a non-volatile (NV) memory as a disk cache during runtime operations in a computer system having a disk drive; and

using the NV memory to store hiberfile data during a low power state of the computer system, wherein the NV memory is to use a reserve space in the NV memory as storage for at least a part of the hiberfile data.

22. The medium of claim 21;

wherein the operations further comprise using a write-through cache policy to write the hiberfile data to the NV memory and to the disk drive.

23. The medium of claim 22, wherein the operations further comprise resuming operation from the low power state, said resuming comprising reading said hiberfile data from the disk drive, responsive to either of:

1) a write failure when writing the hiberfile data to the NV memory before entering the low power state, or

     2) a read failure during said attempting to read the hiberfile data from the NV memory.

24. The medium of claim 22, wherein the operations further comprise resuming operation from the low power state, said resuming comprising copying an address of a hiberfile mapping table to a new location in the NV memory, the new location to be used if a power failure during the resume operation causes the resume operation to be retried.

25. The medium of claim 21, wherein the operation of using the NV memory to store hiberfile data comprises using a table to map hiberfile data to available memory blocks in the NV memory.

26. The medium of claim 25, wherein the operations further comprise storing the table in at least one available block in the NV memory.