Identifying a potential failure event for a data storage device

• US 9,424,156 B2
• Filed: 05/13/2014
• Issued: 08/23/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Inventors: Slik, David
• Primary Examiner(s): MASKULINSKI, MICHAEL C
• Application Number:
  US14/276,453
• Publication Number:
  US 20150331774A1
• Time in Patent Office: 833 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/008 Reliability or availability analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0703 Error or fault processing not based on redundancy, i.e. by taking additional measures to deal with the error or fault not making use of redundancy in operation, in hardware, or in data representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0727 in a storage system, e.g. in a DASD or network based storage system drivers for digital recording or reproducing units G06F3/06; circuits for error detection or correction within digital recording or reproducing units G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0751 Error or fault detection not based on redundancy power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2058 using more than 2 mirrored copies
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2069 Management of state, configuration or failover
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3034 where the computing system component is a storage system, e.g. DASD based or network based digital input from or digital output to record carriers G06F3/06; digital recording or reproducing G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3089 Monitoring arrangements determined by the means or processing involved in sensing the monitored data, e.g. interfaces, connectors, sensors, probes, agents software debugging using additional hardware using a specific debug interface G06F11/3656; performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring G06F11/3466
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3452 Performance evaluation by statistical analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3471 Address tracing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/81 Threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/855 Details of asynchronous mirroring using a journal to transfer not-yet-mirrored changes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/86 Event-based monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/88 Monitoring involving counting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/06 Digital input from, or digital output to, record carriers , e.g. RAID, emulated record carriers or networked record carriers

Abstract

A storage access request is received. A data storage device is identified as being targeted by the storage access request. The data storage device is located in an enclosure that includes two or more data storage devices, including the data storage device. An access operation is performed in accordance with the storage access request on the data storage device. A record of a fault sensor assigned to the data storage device is updated based at least partly on monitoring the performing of the access operation.

Claims

1. A method of fault monitoring data storage devices in a first enclosure, the method comprising:

receiving a storage access request;

determining that a first data storage device is targeted by the storage access request, wherein the first enclosure includes two or more data storage devices including the first data storage device;

performing an access operation in accordance with the storage access request on the first data storage device;

updating a record of a fault sensor assigned to the first data storage device by monitoring the performing of the access operation;

after updating the record of the fault sensor, determining that a data protection process should be performed based at least partly on the record of the fault sensor;

in response to determining that the data protection process should be performed, selecting a second data storage device that is part of a same synchronous device group of data storage devices as the first data storage device, wherein the second data storage device is in a second enclosure; and

initiating the data protection process to copy data from the first data storage device to the second data storage device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a risk factor for failure associated with the first data storage device based at least partly on the record of the fault sensor.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising reporting the risk factor associated with the first data storage device to at least a storage front-end system.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein reporting the risk factor is responsive to receiving the storage access request from the storage front-end system.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising modifying a schedule to activate or deactivate the first data storage device based at least partly on the risk factor.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein determining that the data protection process should be performed comprises:

determining whether the risk factor surpasses a threshold.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the access operation is a write operation;

and wherein updating the record includes updating a write latency of the write operation.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising activating the first data storage device before performing the access operation;

and wherein updating the record includes updating a lag time for the first enclosure to access the first data storage device after power is supplied to the first data storage device.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the access operation is a read operation;

and wherein updating the record includes updating a read latency of the read operation.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting the record of the fault sensor to at least a storage front-end system.

11. A method of responding to a potential failure of a first data storage device in a first enclosure, comprising:

determining a first risk factor of the first data storage device;

determining whether the first risk factor surpasses a threshold;

selecting a second data storage device that is part of a same synchronous device group of data storage devices as the first data storage device, wherein the data storage devices of the synchronous device group are activated together, wherein the second data storage device is in a second enclosure, wherein the first enclosure and the second enclosure each comprise a plurality of data storage devices; and

initiating a data protection process to copy data from the first data storage device to the second data storage device.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein determining the first risk factor is based at least partly on performance monitoring of the data storage device.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the performance monitoring includes maintaining a record of write access latency, read access latency, activation latency, or any combination thereof, of the data storage device.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein determining the first risk factor is based at least partly on metering operations to the data storage device.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein metering the operations includes maintaining a record of a storage access frequency, a storage access count, a data throughput amount, a total uptime, or any combination thereof, of the data storage device.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein determining the first risk factor includes receiving the first risk factor associated with the data storage device from the multiple-data-storage-devices enclosure that includes the data storage device.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein selecting the second data storage device is based at least partly on a determining that the second data storage device has a second risk factor that indicates a lower chance of failure than the first risk factor.

18. The method of claim 11, where selecting the second data storage device is based at least partly on a determining that the second data storage device has a second risk factor that does not surpass the threshold.

19. The method of claim 11, where selecting the second data storage device is based at least partly on a ranking of risk factors of the data storage devices.

20. An apparatus comprising:

a processor,

data storage devices including a first data storage device; and

a non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the processor, causes the apparatus to;

detect a storage access request;

determine that the first data storage device is targeted by the storage access request;

perform an access operation in accordance with the storage access request on the first data storage device;

update a record of a fault sensor assigned to the first data storage device by monitoring the performance of the access operation;

after updating the record of the fault sensor, determine that a data protection process should be performed based at least partly on the record of the fault sensor;

in response to a determination that the data protection process should be performed, select a second data storage device that is part of a same synchronous device group of data storage devices as the first data storage device, wherein the second data storage device is in a second enclosure; and

initiating the data protection process to copy data from the first data storage device to the second data storage device.