System and method for reducing unrecoverable media errors in a disk subsystem
First Claim
1. A method for handling a disk error, comprising:
- receiving, in response to an I/O operation, a status signal indicating a disk error;
determining if a RAID group containing the disk is in a degraded state;
if the RAID group is not in the degraded state, reassigning the I/O operation to a spare sector; and
if the RAID group is in the degraded state;
not reassigning the I/O operation to the spare sector, andstoring the I/O operation in a log to reassign to the spare sector at a future time.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system and method for reducing unrecoverable errors in a disk drive by under-taking an aggressive reassignment of slow-reading or currently recoverable-but-erroneous sectors to the spares pool is provided. A recovered error is treated by the system operating system as a fatal error and thereby the sectors involved are reassigned to the spares pool immediately. Reassignment is recommended by a reassignment utility at the disk interface level, which passes a status up to the RAID subsystem by which reassignment is performed. In order to prevent a double-disk panic, the RAID subsystem is instructed to ignore reassignment recommendations of this type (e.g. reassignment of recoverable errors) if the RAID group is currently operating in a degraded state. However, if the RAID group is undegraded, then immediate assignment of the sectors encountering the recoverable error is undertaken.
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Citations
10 Claims
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1. A method for handling a disk error, comprising:
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receiving, in response to an I/O operation, a status signal indicating a disk error; determining if a RAID group containing the disk is in a degraded state; if the RAID group is not in the degraded state, reassigning the I/O operation to a spare sector; and if the RAID group is in the degraded state; not reassigning the I/O operation to the spare sector, and storing the I/O operation in a log to reassign to the spare sector at a future time. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3)
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4. An apparatus for handling a disk error, comprising:
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means for receiving, in response to an I/O operation, a status signal indicating a disk error; means for determining if a RAID group containing the disk is in a degraded state; if the RAID group is not in the degraded state, means for reassigning the I/O operation to a spare sector; and if the RAID group is in the degraded state; means for not reassigning the I/O operation to the spare sector; and means for storing the I/O operation in a log to reassign to the spare sector at a future time. - View Dependent Claims (5)
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6. A system for handling a disk error, comprising:
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a storage adapter for receiving, in response to an I/O operation, a status signal indicating a disk error; a mechanism in the storage layer for determining if a RAID group containing the disk is in a degraded state, and if the RAID group is not in the degraded state, reassigning the I/O operation to a spare sector; and if the RAID group is in the degraded state, the mechanism is further configured to; not reassign the I/O operation to the spare sector, and store the I/O operation in a log to reassign to the spare sector at a future time. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8)
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9. A computer readable media, comprising:
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the computer readable media containing instructions for execution on a processor for the practice of the method for handling a disk error, comprising; receiving, in response to an I/O operation, a status signal indicating a disk error; determining if a RAID group containing the disk is in a degraded state; and if the RAID group is not in the degraded state, reassigning the I/O operation to a spare sector if the RAID group is in the degraded state; not reassigning the I/O operation to the spare sector, and storing the I/O operation in a log to reassign to the spare sector at a further time. - View Dependent Claims (10)
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Specification