Enhanced power control of data storage arrays

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10372185-B2
Application number	US-201514811297-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 28, 2015
Priority date	Jul 28, 2015
Publication date	Aug 6, 2019
Grant date	Aug 6, 2019

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 system is presented. The data storage system includes data storage devices configured for storage and retrieval of data, power supply modules configured to provide power to at least the plurality of data storage devices, and a management controller configured to monitor power properties associated with the power supply modules to detect a degraded power condition. Responsive to the degraded power condition, the management controller is configured to establish adjustments to performance of the data storage devices to mitigate the degraded power condition.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A data storage system, comprising:
a plurality of data storage devices configured for storage and retrieval of data;
a plurality of power supply modules configured to provide power to at least the plurality of data storage devices; and
a management controller configured to:
establish a just-in-time (JIT) seek performance for one or more active storage devices of the plurality of data storage devices;
monitor power properties associated with a first power supply module of the plurality of power supply modules to detect a degraded power condition in the first power supply module,
wherein the degraded power condition comprises a failure of the first power supply module to provide an amount of output power capacity;

responsive to the degraded power condition:
reduce a power consumption of the plurality of data storage devices by the amount of output power capacity during a period of time in which the first power supply module is not replaced by a replacement power supply module to mitigate an increase in a workload of one or more remaining power supply modules of the plurality of power supply modules during the period of time,
wherein to reduce the power consumption of the plurality of data storage devices, the management controller dynamically adjusts the JIT seek performance for the one or more active storage devices.

2. The data storage system of claim 1 , wherein to reduce the power consumption of the plurality of data storage devices, the management controller is configured to establish adjustments to at least seek operations of the plurality of data storage devices.

3. The data storage system of claim 1 , wherein to reduce the power consumption of the plurality of data storage devices, the management controller is configured to throttle performance of the plurality of data storage devices.

4. The data storage system of claim 1 , wherein to reduce the power consumption of the plurality of data storage devices, the management controller is configured to reduce seek performance of the plurality of data storage devices to reduce a power consumption of the data storage system to below a threshold power consumption.

5. The data storage system of claim 4 , wherein the threshold power consumption comprises a power output level of at least a functioning one of the one or more remaining power supply modules.

6. The data storage system of claim 1 , wherein:
the degraded power condition further comprises an input voltage for the first power supply module falling below a threshold voltage level; and
responsive to the input voltage for the first power supply module falling below the threshold voltage level, the management controller configured to alter seek performance of the plurality of data storage devices to reduce a power consumption of the data storage system to below a threshold power consumption.

7. The data storage system of claim 1 , wherein the management controller is further configured to:
in response to detecting the degraded power condition, adjust at least one additional factor of a plurality of operational factors of the data storage system to reduce a power consumption of the data storage system below a predetermined power consumption and prevent overloading of the one or more remaining power supply modules, the operational factors comprising at least the just-in-time (JIT) seek performance of the plurality of data storage devices and background media scan (BMS) integrity checking of the plurality of data storage devices; and
in response to the adjustment to the at least one additional factor of the plurality of operational factors failing to reduce the power consumption to below the predetermined power consumption, instruct ones of the plurality of data storage devices to halt rotation of associated rotating media.

8. The data storage system of claim 1 , wherein the management controller is further configured to:
detect the degraded power condition when input voltage to the first power supply module falls below a threshold voltage.

9. A method of operating a data storage system, the method comprising:
storing data in and retrieving data from a plurality of data storage devices;
providing power to at least the plurality of data storage devices using a plurality of power supplies;
establishing a just-in-time (JIT) seek performance for one or more active storage devices of the plurality of data storage devices;
monitoring power properties associated with the plurality of power supplies to detect a degraded power condition in a first power supply of the plurality of power supplies;
detecting the degraded power condition responsive to a failure of the first power supply to provide an amount of output power capacity; and
responsive to detecting the degraded power condition:
reducing a power consumption of the plurality of data storage devices by the amount of output power capacity of the first power supply prior to the failure to mitigate an increase in a workload of a remainder of the plurality of power supplies providing output power,
wherein reducing the power consumption includes at least dynamically adjusting the JIT seek performance for the one or more active storage devices of the plurality of data storage devices; and

maintaining the reducing of the power consumption of the plurality of data storage devices while the remainder of the plurality of power supplies provide output power without an additional power supply.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein reducing the power consumption includes at least establishing adjustments to seek operations of the plurality of data storage devices.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein reducing the power consumption includes at least at least throttling performance of the plurality of data storage devices.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein reducing the power consumption includes at least reducing seek performance of the plurality of data storage devices to reduce a power consumption of the data storage system to below a threshold power consumption.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the threshold power consumption comprises a power output level of at least a functioning one of the plurality of power supplies.

14. The method of claim 9 , wherein the degraded power condition further comprises an input voltage for the first power supply falling below a threshold voltage level, and further comprising:
responsive to the input voltage for the first power supply falling below the threshold voltage level, altering seek performance of the plurality of data storage devices to reduce a power consumption of the data storage system to below a threshold power consumption.

15. The method of claim 9 , wherein reducing the power consumption includes adjusting at least one additional factor of a plurality of operational factors of the data storage system to reduce a power consumption of the data storage system below a predetermined power consumption and prevent overloading of remaining functional ones of the plurality of power supplies, the operational factors comprising at least the just-in-time (JIT) seek performance of the plurality of data storage devices and background media scan (BMS) integrity checking of the plurality of data storage devices; and
further comprising in response to the adjustments to the at least one additional factor of the plurality of operational factors failing to reduce the power consumption to below the predetermined power consumption, instructing ones of the plurality of data storage devices to halt rotation of associated rotating media.

16. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:

Assignees

• HGST Netherlands BV
• Western Digital Tech Inc

Inventors

• Lester Robert Michael
• Mcnally Todd Christopher

Classifications

• G06F3/0634

  by changing the state or mode of one or more devices · CPC title

• G06F3/0617

  in relation to availability · CPC title

• G06F1/30 Primary

  Means for acting in the event of power-supply failure or interruption, e.g. power-supply fluctuations (for resetting only G06F1/24) · CPC title

• G06F3/0689

  Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD · CPC title

• G06F3/0683

  Plurality of storage devices · CPC title