Methods and structure to maintain raid configuration information on disks of the array
First Claim
1. In a RAID storage subsystem having a plurality of disk drives configured into a plurality of groups and a controller, a method operable in said controller for detecting configuration changes in said subsystem comprising the steps of:
- storing configuration information on each of said disk drives wherein said configuration information includes group configuration information corresponding to each group of said plurality of groups with which the corresponding disk drive is associated;
reading said configuration information from said disk drives; and
reconfiguring said plurality of groups of said subsystem in accordance with configuration information read from said disk drives independent of the physical location of said disk drives within said RAID subsystem.
7 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Methods and associated apparatus operable in a RAID subsystem to improve the speed and flexibility of initializing the subsystem by storing configuration and identification information in a reserved area on each disk drive in the subsystem. The reserved area on each disk drive of the disk array contains a unique identifier to identify the particular disk drive from all others and further contains group configuration information regarding all groups in which the particular disk drive is a member. The configuration and identification information is generated and written to each disk drive in the disk array when the particular disk drive is configured so as to be added or deleted from groups of the subsystem. Upon subsystem reset (e.g. power on reset or other reset operations), the RAID controller in the subsystem determines the proper configuration of the RAID groups despite temporary unavailability or physical relocation of one or more disk drives in the disk array. In addition, entire groups of disk drives may be moved from one subsystem to another and automatically recognized by the new controller when the controller is reset.
160 Citations
18 Claims
-
1. In a RAID storage subsystem having a plurality of disk drives configured into a plurality of groups and a controller, a method operable in said controller for detecting configuration changes in said subsystem comprising the steps of:
-
storing configuration information on each of said disk drives wherein said configuration information includes group configuration information corresponding to each group of said plurality of groups with which the corresponding disk drive is associated; reading said configuration information from said disk drives; and reconfiguring said plurality of groups of said subsystem in accordance with configuration information read from said disk drives independent of the physical location of said disk drives within said RAID subsystem. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
-
-
10. In a RAID storage subsystem having a plurality of disk drives configured into a plurality of groups and a controller, an apparatus for detecting configuration changes in said subsystem comprising:
-
means for storing configuration information on each of said disk drives wherein said configuration information includes group configuration information corresponding to each group of said plurality of groups with which the corresponding disk drive is associated; means for reading said configuration information from said disk drives; and means for reconfiguring said plurality of groups of said subsystem in accordance with configuration information read from said disk drives independent of the physical location of said disk drives within said RAID subsystem. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
-
Specification