Enhanced storage device replacement system and method
First Claim
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1. A method for re-building information stored on a source storage device at a replacement storage device, the method comprising:
- copying some but not all of the information from the source storage device to the replacement storage device, the information stored in plural stripes, the copying performed one stripe at a time;
tracking completion of the copying of each stripe;
detecting a failure at the source storage device;
retaining at the replacement storage device the information copied from the source storage device;
retrieving from one or more secondary source storage devices to the replacement storage device the stripes needed to complete re-building the source storage device at the replacement storage device.
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Abstract
Recovery of a failed storage device of a RAID array to a replacement storage device is improved by initiating recovery before failure of the storage device occurs. If failure occurs before completing the transfer of all information from the failed storage device to the replacement storage device, then the RAID controller identifies untransferred information to recreate the failed storage device at the replacement storage device by re-building only the untransferred information with a parity operation using information stored at the array.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method for re-building information stored on a source storage device at a replacement storage device, the method comprising:
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copying some but not all of the information from the source storage device to the replacement storage device, the information stored in plural stripes, the copying performed one stripe at a time; tracking completion of the copying of each stripe; detecting a failure at the source storage device; retaining at the replacement storage device the information copied from the source storage device; retrieving from one or more secondary source storage devices to the replacement storage device the stripes needed to complete re-building the source storage device at the replacement storage device. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. An information handling system comprising:
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a processor operable to execute instructions; plural storage devices interfaced with the processor and operable to store information, including a source storage device, a replacement storage device, and one or more secondary source storage devices; and memory interfaced with the processor and storing instructions operable to; initiate transfer of all information stored at a source storage device to a replacement storage device, the information organized as stripes; tracking completion of transfer of information by completion of transfer of each stripe; detect failure of the source storage device after a transferred portion of the information is copied to the replacement storage device and before an untransferred portion is copied to the replacement storage device; and retrieve, in response to the failure, the untransferred portion from the one or more secondary storage devices to copy the untransferred portion to the replacement storage device, the untransferred portion identified as stripes that did not complete transfer. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A method for storing information in an array having plural storage devices, the array organizing the information as plural stripes at each of the plural storage devices, the method comprising:
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predicting failure of a first of the storage devices; in response to the predicting, initiating transfer of the information from the first storage device to a second storage device by incrementing through the stripes of the first storage device to copy each striped to the second storage device; detecting failure of a stripe to copy from the first storage device without detecting failure of the first storage device; in response to detecting failure of a stripe to copy, rebuilding the stripe that failed to copy with a parity operation from the array and then continuing with the incrementing; detecting failure of the first storage device before completing the transfer of the information to the second storage device; identifying untransferred information that was not copied from the first storage device to the second storage device before the failure by identifying stripes that did not transfer from the first storage device to the second storage device; and retrieving the untransferred information from the array to the second storage device. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification