Method for managing storage devices, electronic device and computer-readable medium

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11669245-B2
Application number	US-202016831340-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 26, 2020
Priority date	Apr 24, 2019
Publication date	Jun 6, 2023
Grant date	Jun 6, 2023

Abstract

Techniques provide for managing storage devices. Such techniques involve: combining storage devices in a redundant array of independent disks into a group of storage devices in an order of physical capacities of the storage devices; determining a first number of sets of storage devices based on a number of storage devices in the group and a threshold number of storage devices to be divided into each of the sets; and dividing, based on a configuration of the redundant array of independent disks, the group of storage devices into the first number of sets of storage devices, to optimize an effective capacity of the redundant array of independent disks.

First claim

I claim:

1. A method of managing storage devices, comprising:
combining storage devices in a redundant array of independent disks into a group of storage devices in an order of physical capacities of the storage devices;
determining a first number of sets of storage devices based on a number of storage devices in the group and a threshold number of storage devices to be divided into each of the sets; and
dividing, based on a configuration of the redundant array of independent disks, the group of storage devices into the first number of sets of storage devices, wherein storage devices contained in each set of storage devices within the first number of sets of storage devices are divided into fixed capacity slices of storage capacity that form a set of multiple stripes corresponding to the set, to optimize an effective capacity of the redundant array of independent disks, at least in part by generating a first allocation matrix based on the group of storage devices and a total number of different individual physical capacities of the storage devices in the group of storage devices, such that a number of rows in the first allocation matrix is equal to the total number of different individual physical capacities of the storage devices in the group of storage devices, wherein each one of the rows in the first allocation matrix corresponds to a respective one of the different individual physical capacities of the storage devices, and wherein a plurality of the storage devices have a same one of the different individual physical capacities.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein dividing the group of storage devices into the sets further comprises:
generating the first allocation matrix such that a number of columns in the first allocation matrix is equal to the first number of sets, such that each column in the first allocation matrix corresponds to one of the sets in the first number of sets, such that each individual element in the first allocation matrix represents a number of the storage devices in the set corresponding to the column containing that element that have the individual physical capacity corresponding to the row containing that element, and such that an order of the rows in the first allocation matrix corresponds to an order of the different individual physical capacities of the storage devices in the group of storage devices.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein combining the storage devices in the redundant array of independent disks into the group of storage devices in the order of physical capacities of the storage devices comprises:
combining the storage devices in the redundant array of independent disks into the group of storage devices in a descending order of the physical capacities.

4. An electronic device, comprising:
at least one processor; and
a memory coupled to the processor, the memory storing computer programs, the computer programs, when executed by the processor, causing the electronic device to perform acts comprising:
combining storage devices in a redundant array of independent disks into a group of storage devices in an order of physical capacities of the storage devices;
determining a first number of sets of storage devices based on a number of storage devices in the group and a threshold number of storage devices to be divided into each of the sets; and
dividing, based on a configuration of the redundant array of independent disks, the group of storage devices into the first number of sets of storage devices, to optimize an effective capacity of the redundant array of independent disks, wherein storage devices contained in each set of storage devices within the first number of sets of storage devices are divided into fixed capacity slices of storage capacity that form a set of multiple stripes corresponding to the set, at least in part by generating a first allocation matrix based on the group of storage devices and a total number of different individual physical capacities of the storage devices in the group of storage devices, such that a number of rows in the first allocation matrix is equal to the total number of different individual physical capacities of the storage devices in the group of storage devices, wherein each one of the rows in the first allocation matrix corresponds to a respective one of the different individual physical capacities of the storage devices, and wherein a plurality of the storage devices have a same one of the different individual physical capacities.

5. The electronic device of claim 4 , wherein dividing the group of storage devices into the sets further comprises:
generating the first allocation matrix such that a number of columns in the first allocation matrix is equal to the first number of sets, such that each column in the first allocation matrix corresponds to one of the sets in the first number of sets, such that each individual element in the first allocation matrix represents a number of the storage devices in the set corresponding to the column of the first allocation matrix containing that element that have the individual physical capacity corresponding to the row containing that element, and such that an order of the rows in the first allocation matrix corresponds to an order of the different individual physical capacities of the storage devices in the group of storage devices.

6. The electronic device of claim 4 , wherein combining the storage devices in the redundant array of independent disks into the group of storage devices in the order of physical capacities of the storage devices comprises:
combining the storage devices in the redundant array of independent disks into the group of storage devices in a descending order of the physical capacities.

7. A computer program product having a non-transitory computer readable medium which stores a set of instructions to manage storage devices; the set of instructions, when carried out by computerized circuitry, causing the computerized circuitry to perform a method of:
combining storage devices in a redundant array of independent disks into a group of storage devices in an order of physical capacities of the storage devices;
determining a first number of sets of storage devices based on a number of storage devices in the group and a threshold number of storage devices to be divided into each of the sets; and
dividing, based on a configuration of the redundant array of independent disks, the group of storage devices into the first number of sets of storage devices, wherein storage devices contained in each set of storage devices within the first number of sets of storage devices are divided into fixed capacity slices of storage capacity that form a set of multiple stripes corresponding to the set, to optimize an effective capacity of the redundant array of independent disks, at least in part by generating a first allocation matrix based on the group of storage devices and a total number of different individual physical capacities of the storage devices in the group of storage devices, such that a number of rows in the first allocation matrix is equal to the total number of different individual physical capacities of the storage devices in the group of storage devices, wherein each one of the rows in the first allocation matrix corresponds to a respective one of the different individual physical capacities of the storage devices, and wherein a plurality of the storage devices have a same one of the different individual physical capacities.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the group of storage devices includes both at least one storage device in an existing set of storage devices and at least one storage device in a new set of storage devices added to the existing set of storage devices.

Assignees

• Emc Ip Holding Co Llc

Inventors

• Shang Rongrong
• Han Geng
• Zhang Xiaobo
• Jia Ruiyong
• Li Xiongcheng

Classifications

• G06F3/0689 Primary

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

• G06F3/0659

  Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling · CPC title

• G06F3/065

  Replication mechanisms · CPC title

• G06F3/0604

  Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management · CPC title

• G06F3/0608 Primary

  Saving storage space on storage systems · CPC title