Enhanced low overhead data protection in data storage drives

• US 9,530,442 B1
• Filed: 09/23/2015
• Issued: 12/27/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. (JP Morgan Chase & Co)
• Original Assignee: Western Digital Technologies Incorporated (Western Digital Corporation)
• Inventors: Hassner, Martin, Yamamoto, Satoshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Agustin, Peter Vincent
• Application Number:
  US14/863,378
• Time in Patent Office: 461 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 11/076 by exceeding a count or rate limit, e.g. word- or bit count limit
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1076 Parity data used in redundant arrays of independent storages, e.g. in RAID systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0653 Monitoring storage devices or systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0659 Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0676 Magnetic disk device
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/10009 Improvement or modification of read or write signals
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/1217 on discs
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/1833 by adding special lists or symbols to the coded information G11B20/1806, G11B20/1866 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2020/1238 track, i.e. the entire a spirally or concentrically arranged path on which the recording marks are located
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2020/1292 Enhancement of the total storage capacity
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 5/59627 Aligning for runout, eccentricity or offset compensation G11B5/5534, G11B5/59677, G11B5/59688 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 13/35 Unequal or adaptive error protection, e.g. by providing a different level of protection according to significance of source information or by adapting the coding according to the change of transmission channel characteristics

Abstract

To provide enhanced operation of data storage devices and systems, various systems, apparatuses, methods, and software are provided herein. In a first example, a data storage device is presented that performs a write process to store data on a storage medium of the data storage device responsive to one or more write operations received over a host interface. The data storage device monitors a quality of the write process and determines when the quality of the write process falls below a threshold quality. Responsive to the quality of the write process falling below the threshold quality, the data storage device indicates the quality of the write process to a data protection node that determines data parity information for the data to compensate for the quality of the write process. The data storage device receives the data parity information and stores the data parity information.

Claims

1. A data storage device, comprising:

a storage control system configured to;

perform a write process to store data on a storage medium of the data storage device responsive to one or more write operations received from a host system over a host interface;

monitor a quality of the write process and determine when the quality of the write process falls below a threshold quality;

responsive to the quality of the write process falling below the threshold quality, indicate the quality of the write process to a data protection node of the host system that determines data parity information for the data to compensate for the quality of the write process;

receive a parity write command issued by the host system comprising the data parity information; and

responsively store the data parity information.

2. The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the storage control system is further configured to:

detect squeezed sectors during the write process based on at least position error signal (PES) metrics monitored during the write process; and

determine the quality of the write process based at least on a quantity of squeezed sectors.

3. The data storage device of claim 2, wherein the threshold quality comprises a quantity of parity sectors employed during the write process, and wherein the storage control system is further configured to:

when the quantity of squeezed sectors is greater than a threshold quantity of parity sectors employed during the write process, indicate the quality of the write process to the data protection node.

4. The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the storage control system is further configured to:

skip write verification for the data after storage on the storage medium.

5. The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the storage control system is further configured to:

store the data parity information on the storage medium; and

track the data parity information as being associated with the data.

6. The data storage device of claim 5, wherein the storage control system is further configured to:

store the data parity information on the storage medium in a different storage location than the data.

7. The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the storage control system is further configured to:

receive a read operation over the host interface for at least a portion of the data; and

in response, retrieve at least the portion of the data and the data parity information from the storage medium, and transfer the data and the data parity information over the host interface.

8. The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the write process to store the data comprises a burst write of a data band that spans a plurality of adjacent tracks of the storage medium, and wherein the data parity information comprises parity information for the data band.

9. A method of operating a data storage device, the method comprising:

performing a write process to store data on a storage medium of the data storage device responsive to one or more write operations received from a host system over a host interface;

monitoring a quality of the write process;

determining when the quality of the write process falls below a threshold quality;

in response to the quality of the write process falling below the threshold quality, indicating the quality of the write process to a data protection node of the host system that determines data parity information for the data to compensate for the quality of the write process;

receiving a parity write command issued by the host system comprising the data parity information; and

responsively storing the data parity information.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

detecting squeezed sectors during the write process based on at least position error signal (PES) metrics monitored during the write process; and

determining the quality of the write process based at least on a quantity of squeezed sectors.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the threshold quality comprises a quantity of parity sectors employed during the write process, and further comprising:

when the quantity of squeezed sectors is greater than a threshold quantity of parity sectors employed during the write process, indicating the quality of the write process to the data protection node.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

skipping write verification for the data after storage on the storage medium.

13. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

storing the data parity information on the storage medium; and

tracking the data parity information as being associated with the data.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

storing the data parity information on the storage medium in a different storage location than the data.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

receiving a read operation over the host interface for at least a portion of the data; and

in response, retrieving at least the portion of the data and the data parity information from the storage medium, and transferring the data and the data parity information over the host interface.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the write process to store the data comprises a burst write of a data band that spans a plurality of adjacent tracks of the storage medium, and wherein the data parity information comprises parity information for the data band.

17. A data storage system, comprising:

a plurality of data storage devices each configured to store and retrieve data on associated storage media; and

a first data storage device configured to;

perform a write process to store data on a storage medium of the first data storage device responsive to one or more write operations received from a host system over a host interface;

monitor a quality of the write process and determine when the quality of the write process falls below a threshold quality;

responsive to the quality of the write process falling below the threshold quality, indicate the quality of the write process to a data protection node of the host system that determines data parity information for the data to compensate for the quality of the write process;

receive a parity write command issued by the host system comprising the data parity information; and

responsively store the data parity information on at least one of the first data storage device and a second data storage device.

18. The data storage system of claim 17, wherein the threshold quality comprises a quantity of parity sectors employed during the write process, and wherein the first data storage device is further configured to:

detect squeezed sectors during the write process based on at least position error signal (PES) metrics monitored during the write process;

determine the quality of the write process based at least on a quantity of squeezed sectors; and

when the quantity of squeezed sectors is greater than a threshold quantity of parity sectors employed during write process, indicate the quality of the write process to the data protection node.