Methods and systems for provisioning a bootable image on to an external drive
First Claim
1. A method of provisioning a bootable image onto a portable storage device, wherein the portable storage device comprises a volatile write cache, said method comprising:
- initiating write cache disguising in a portable storage device;
receiving, from a host, a write command including write data for a bootable image;
writing the write data to a volatile write cache of a portable storage device;
provide a signal to the host indicating completion of the write command;
receiving, from the host, a cache flush command;
in response to receiving the cache flush command, disguising write caching of the write data in the volatile write cache at least in part by providing a response to the host that falsely indicates that the write data has been flushed from the volatile write cache without writing the write data to non-volatile memory of the portable storage device in response to the cache flush command;
discontinuing write cache disguising in the portable storage device after a predetermined period; and
after said discontinuing, flushing the write data from the volatile write cache.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention relates to a method of optimizing the provisioning of a bootable image onto a storage device. In some embodiments, a host device executes a provisioning application to image a storage drive as a bootable drive. During the provisioning process, the storage device is configured to disguise its use of write caching during the provisioning process. In one embodiment, the storage device is configured to suppress forced unit access commands and cache flush commands for the provisioning application. In another embodiment, the storage device is configured to reject forced unit access commands. The storage device may disguise its use of write caching based on various criteria, such as a length of time, a counter, and the like.
50 Citations
16 Claims
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1. A method of provisioning a bootable image onto a portable storage device, wherein the portable storage device comprises a volatile write cache, said method comprising:
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initiating write cache disguising in a portable storage device; receiving, from a host, a write command including write data for a bootable image; writing the write data to a volatile write cache of a portable storage device; provide a signal to the host indicating completion of the write command; receiving, from the host, a cache flush command; in response to receiving the cache flush command, disguising write caching of the write data in the volatile write cache at least in part by providing a response to the host that falsely indicates that the write data has been flushed from the volatile write cache without writing the write data to non-volatile memory of the portable storage device in response to the cache flush command; discontinuing write cache disguising in the portable storage device after a predetermined period; and after said discontinuing, flushing the write data from the volatile write cache. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A portable storage device comprising:
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a volatile write cache for temporarily storing data received from a host device; an interface configured for communications with the host device; and a controller configured to; receive, from the host device, a write command including write data for a bootable image; cache the write data in the volatile write cache; provide a signal to the host device indicating completion of the write command; receive a cache flush command from the host device; in response to the cache flush command, disguise write caching during provisioning of the boot image onto the portable storage device by providing a response to the host device that falsely indicates that the write data has been flushed from the volatile write cache without writing the write data to non-volatile memory of the portable storage device in response to the cache flush command; discontinue write cache disguising in the portable storage device after a predetermined period; and after said discontinuing, flush the write data from the volatile write cache after a predetermined period. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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Specification