PREEMPTIVE RELOCATION OF FAILING DATA

• US 20150234719A1
• Filed: 02/18/2014
• Published: 08/20/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/18/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Coronado, Juan A., Martinez, Lisa R., Peterson, Beth A., Shioya, Jennifer S.
• Granted Patent: US 9,354,994 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/004 Error avoidance G06F11/07 and subgroups take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/008 Reliability or availability analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0727 in a storage system, e.g. in a DASD or network based storage system drivers for digital recording or reproducing units G06F3/06; circuits for error detection or correction within digital recording or reproducing units G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/203 using migration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2094 Redundant storage or storage space G06F11/2056 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3485 for I/O devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/81 Threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/06 Digital input from, or digital output to, record carriers , e.g. RAID, emulated record carriers or networked record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0653 Monitoring storage devices or systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0683 Plurality of storage devices

Abstract

According to one embodiment, a method for preemptively migrating a failing extent includes receiving information of one or more failure conditions associated with an extent stored in a first storage portion of a first storage tier; predicting a failure of the extent based on the information; selecting a second storage portion located in the first storage tier, a higher storage tier, and/or a lower storage tier; and migrating the extent to the selected second storage portion.

Claims

1. A method for preemptively migrating a failing extent, comprising:

receiving information of one or more failure conditions associated with an extent stored in a first storage portion of a first storage tier;

predicting a failure of the extent based on the information;

selecting a second storage portion located in the first storage tier, a higher storage tier, and a lower storage tier; and

migrating the extent to the selected second storage portion.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the migration of the extent predicted to fail is proactively prioritized, and wherein the selected second storage portion to which the extent is migrated is located in the first storage tier or a higher storage tier.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the information comprises one or more errors associated with the extent.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the information comprises a performance of the extent that falls below a threshold value.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising monitoring a number of times the failure condition occurs.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the extent is a contiguous block of data.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the second storage portion located in the first storage tier has a same rank as the first storage portion.

8. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein higher storage tier comprises more expensive and/or faster-to-access storage media than the first storage tier.

9. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the lower storage tier comprises less expensive and/or slower-to-access storage media than the first storage tier.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein selecting the second storage portion located in the first storage tier, a higher storage tier and/or a lower storage tier is based, at least in part, on a priority of the storage tiers.

11. The method as recited in claim 10, wherein selecting the second storage portion according to the priority comprises:

selecting a second storage portion located in the first storage tier when available;

selecting a second storage portion located in a higher storage tier relative to the first storage tier when a second storage portion in the first storage tier is not available; and

selecting a second storage portion located in a lower storage tier relative to the first storage tier when a second portion in the higher storage tier is not available.

12. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein selecting the second storage portion located in the first storage tier, a higher storage tier and/or a lower storage tier is based, at least in part, on a user preference.

13. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the extent is migrated to the second storage portion prior to the failure of the extent.

14. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising executing a recovery process of the first storage portion:

wherein the recovery process comprises rebuilding the first storage portion.

15. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program code embodied therewith, the program code readable/executable by a processor to:

receive information of one or more failure conditions associated with an extent stored in a first storage portion of a first storage tier;

predict a failure of the extent based on the information;

select a second storage portion located in the first storage tier, a higher storage tier, and/or a lower storage tier; and

migrate the extent to the selected second storage portion.

16. The computer program product as recited in claim 15, wherein the information comprises at least one of:

one or more errors associated with the extent, and a performance of the extent that falls below a threshold value.

17. The computer program product as recited in claim 15, wherein the migration of the extent predicted to fail is proactively prioritized, and wherein the selected second storage portion to which the extent is migrated is located in the first storage tier or a higher storage tier.

18. The computer program product as recited in claim 15, wherein the program code is further readable/executable by the processor to select the second storage portion based on a default priority of the storage tiers and/or a user preference.

19. The computer program product as recited in claim 18, wherein the selection of the second storage portion based on the default priority comprises:

selecting a second storage portion that has a same rank as the first storage portion and that is located in the first storage tier when available;

selecting a second storage portion located in a higher storage tier relative to the first storage tier when a second storage portion that has the same rank as the first storage portion and that is located in the first storage tier is not available; and

selecting a second storage portion located in a lower storage tier relative to the first storage tier when a second portion in the higher storage tier is not available.

20. A system, comprising logic integrated with and/or executable by a hardware processor, the logic being configured to:

receive information of one or more failure conditions associated with an extent stored in a first storage portion of a first storage tier;

predict a failure of the extent based on the information;

select a second storage portion located in the first storage tier, a higher storage tier, and/or a lower storage tier; and

migrate the extent to the selected second storage portion.