On demand, non-capacity based process, apparatus and computer program to determine maintenance fees for disk data storage system
First Claim
1. A data recording medium tangibly storing a program of machine-readable instructions executable by a digital processing apparatus to perform operations to determine a maintenance fee for a data storage system, the operations comprising:
- monitoring at least one data storage device during operation of the data storage system to determine a data storage device duty cycle; and
determining a current value of the maintenance fee based at least in part on the determined data storage device duty cycle;
wherein the data storage device is comprised of a disk drive, wherein the monitoring operation further comprises recording over a sampling interval at least a number of seek operations, and wherein the recording over the sampling interval further records a distance that a read/write head moves during a seek operation.
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Accused Products
Abstract
In one aspect the invention provides a signal bearing medium tangibly embodying a program of machine-readable instructions that are executable by a digital processing apparatus to perform operations to determine a maintenance fee for a data storage system. The operations include monitoring at least one data storage device during operation of the data storage system to determine a duty cycle and determining a current value of the maintenance fee based at least in part on the determined duty cycle. In a further disk drive-based embodiment the operations may include, or be instead, determining a disk drive redundancy configuration of disk drives of a data storage system. The operations then compare the determined duty cycle to a threshold value and assert a redundancy configuration change signal based on the result of the comparison. For a RAID configuration embodiment having a RAID level, the asserting operation asserts a RAID level change signal based on the result of the comparison.
38 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A data recording medium tangibly storing a program of machine-readable instructions executable by a digital processing apparatus to perform operations to determine a maintenance fee for a data storage system, the operations comprising:
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monitoring at least one data storage device during operation of the data storage system to determine a data storage device duty cycle; and determining a current value of the maintenance fee based at least in part on the determined data storage device duty cycle;
wherein the data storage device is comprised of a disk drive, wherein the monitoring operation further comprises recording over a sampling interval at least a number of seek operations, and wherein the recording over the sampling interval further records a distance that a read/write head moves during a seek operation. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A maintenance provider system operable for establishing a value for a maintenance fee to be charged for operating disk drive data storage system, said maintenance provider system comprising an interface for coupling to a monitor that monitors operation of the disk drive data storage system to determine usage of disk drives;
- and further comprising a processor responsive to information received from the monitor via the interface to determine a disk drive utilization factor and, based at least in part on the determined utilization factor, a current value for the maintenance fee;
wherein the information comprises at least a number of disk drive seek operations, and wherein the information further comprises a distance that a read/write head moves during the seek operation. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7, 8)
- and further comprising a processor responsive to information received from the monitor via the interface to determine a disk drive utilization factor and, based at least in part on the determined utilization factor, a current value for the maintenance fee;
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9. A disk drive-based data storage system comprising:
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means for monitoring said disk drives during operation of the data storage system to determine usage information for the disk drives, the usage information comprising at least one of a number of write operations per unit time, a number of read operations per unit time, and a number of seek operations per unit time; and interface means for coupling to means for determining a maintenance fee for the data storage system, said interface means reporting said usage information to said determining means; wherein the usage information further comprises a distance that a read/write head moves during a seek operation. - View Dependent Claims (10)
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11. A method to determine a maintenance fee for a data storage system, comprising:
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monitoring at least one data storage device during operation of the data storage system to determine a data storage device duty cycle; and determining a value of the maintenance fee based at least in part on the determined data storage device duty cycle;
wherein the data storage device is comprised of a disk drive, and wherein monitoring further comprises recording over a sampling interval at least a number of seek operations, and wherein recording over the sampling interval further records a distance that a read/write head moves during a seek operation. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification