System and Method for Identifying Failing Drives or Media in Media Library

• US 20150243323A1
• Filed: 05/13/2015
• Published: 08/27/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: KIP CR P1 LP
• Original Assignee: KIP CR P1 LP
• Inventors: Moody, William H. II, Sims, Robert C., Bianchi, Brian J.
• Application Number:
  US14/710,807
• Publication Number:
  US 20150243323A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 11/076 by exceeding a count or rate limit, e.g. word- or bit count limit
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3034 where the computing system component is a storage system, e.g. DASD based or network based digital input from or digital output to record carriers G06F3/06; digital recording or reproducing 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 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• 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 3/0673 Single storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0683 Plurality of storage devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 19/048 Testing of disk drives, e.g. to detect defects or prevent sudden failure
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/1816 Testing
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2020/1869 Preventing ageing phenomena from causing data loss, e.g. by monitoring the age of record carriers or by recognising wear, and by copying information elsewhere when a record carrier becomes unreliable
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2220/90 Tape-like record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/34 Indicating arrangements indicating means incorporated in magazine or cassette G11B23/046 and G11B23/0875; indicating measured values in general G01D
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 5/4555 by using a spin-stand, i.e. a spinning disc or simulator

Abstract

Embodiments of methods and systems comprise identifying failing media and/or drives for a media library. Error data can be collected from media libraries. For each tape exhibiting an error rate of interest, a determination can be made whether the tape would still have been of interest had it not been loaded in certain drives. This information can be analyzed to identify failing drives or tapes.

Claims

1. A method of identifying failing media library components, comprising:

issuing SCSI commands to query one or more library components of a media library at intervals and receiving returned data;

determining media and drive combinations, and error rates for the media and drive combinations, from the returned data;

identifying a media in the media and drive combinations that experienced an error rate greater than a first threshold error rate;

determining drive impact data for the media that indicates whether the media would still have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had that media not been loaded in one or more drives in which the media was loaded; and

for a drive in the media and drive combinations in which the media was loaded, identifying whether the drive is suspected of causing the media to have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate based on the drive impact data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicating comprises displaying a first visual indicator associated with the drive in response to determining that the media would not have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had the media not been loaded in that drive and displaying a second visual indicator associated with the drive in response to determine that the media would have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had the media not been loaded in that drive.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising selecting the first visual indicator based on a level of certainty that the drive caused the media to experience greater than the first threshold error rate.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the media in the media and drive combinations that experienced the error rate greater than the first threshold error rate comprises determining if a highest error rate for the media is greater than the first threshold.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the drive impact data for the media comprises:

recording a first drive impact for the drive in response to determining that the media would have experienced the error rate greater than the first threshold had the media not been loaded in the drive; and

the

recording a second drive impact for the drive in response to determining that the media would not have experienced the error rate greater than the first threshold had the media not been loaded in the drive.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the first impact is selected based on a level of drop in error rate of the media had the media not been loaded in the drive.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the second impact is selected based on whether the media was loaded in other drives.

8. The method of claim 1, issuing the SCSI commands comprises issuing the SCSI commands over fibre channel.

9. A media library monitoring system comprising:

a processor;

a memory; and

computer executable instructions stored on the memory and executable to perform the steps of;

issuing SCSI commands to query one or more library components of a media library at intervals and receiving returned data;

determining media and drive combinations and error rates for the media and drive combinations from the returned data;

identifying a media in the media and drive combinations that experienced an error rate greater than a first threshold error rate;

determining drive impact data for the media that indicates whether the media would still have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had that media not been loaded in one or more drives in which the media was loaded; and

for a drive in the media and drive combinations in which the media was loaded, identifying whether the drive is suspected of causing the media to have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate based on the drive impact data.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the indicating comprises displaying a first visual indicator associated with the drive in response to determining that the media would not have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had the media not been loaded in that drive and displaying a second visual indicator associated with the drive in response to determine that the media would have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had the media not been loaded in that drive.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the computer executable instructions are further executable to perform the step of selecting the first visual indicator based on a level of certainty that the drive caused the media to experience greater than the first threshold error rate.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein identifying the media in the media and drive combinations that experienced the error rate greater than the first threshold error rate comprises determining if a highest error rate for the media is greater than the first threshold.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the computer executable instructions are further executable to perform the steps of:

recording a first drive impact for the drive in response to determining that the media would have experienced the error rate greater than the first threshold had the media not been loaded in the drive; and

recording a second drive impact for the drive in response to determining that the media would not have experienced the error rate greater than the first threshold had the media not been loaded in the drive.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the first impact is selected based on a level of drop in error rate of the media had the media not been loaded in the drive.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the second impact is selected based on whether the media was loaded in other drives.

16. The system of claim 9, further comprising a fibre channel communications interface.

17. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

a monitoring appliance configured to perform the issuing of the SCSI commands to the media library to query one or more library components of the media library at intervals and the receiving of the returned data, the monitoring appliance further configured to store the returned data in a repository; and

a management station configured to perform the steps of determining media and drive combinations and error rates for the media and drive combinations from the returned data, identifying a media in the media and drive combinations that experienced an error rate greater than the first threshold error rate, determining the drive impact data for the media that indicates whether the media would still have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate had that media not been loaded in one or more drives in which the media was loaded and identifying whether the drive is suspected of causing the media to have experienced greater than the first threshold error rate based on the drive impact data.

18. The system of claim 9, wherein the computer instructions comprise a data engine and a storage engine, the data engine configured to provide the returned data to the storage engine in a structured format and the storage engine is configured to read the data in the structured format and store the returned data in a repository.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the data engine is further configured to format SCSI data as an XML document and provide the XML document to the storage engine.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the storage engine is configured to unpack the XML document and store the returned data as database records.