Storage apparatus and storage apparatus control method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016004615-A1
Application number	US-201314767413-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 3, 2013
Priority date	Jun 3, 2013
Publication date	Jan 7, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A storage controller stores, for each of a plurality of storage devices, a usable capacity, which is a capacity usable by the storage controller in a logical storage area, configures a first RAID group using a first storage device group among the plurality of storage devices, and allocates, on the basis of a request from a host computer, one of a plurality of pages of the logical storage area in the first RAID group to a virtual volume. The storage controller reduces, when receiving first failure information indicating a failure in a first storage device in the first storage device group from the first storage device, a usable capacity of the first storage device on the basis of the first failure information.

First claim

1 . A storage apparatus comprising:
a plurality of storage devices; and a storage controller coupled to the plurality of storage devices and a host computer and configured to provide the host computer with a virtual volume, wherein each of the plurality of storage devices includes: a plurality of nonvolatile semiconductor memories; and a device controller configured to manage a failure that occurs partially in the plurality of nonvolatile semiconductor memories and provide the storage controller with a logical address space associated with some of the plurality of nonvolatile semiconductor memories, the storage controller is configured to store a logical address space for each of the plurality of storage devices, configure a first RAID group using a first storage device group among the plurality of storage devices, divide a logical storage area in the first RAID group into a plurality of pages, and allocate, on the basis of a write request from the host computer to the virtual volume, one of the plurality of pages in the first RAID group to the virtual volume, the device controller is configured to detect a partial failure in the plurality of nonvolatile semiconductor memories and transmit failure information indicating the detected failure to the storage controller, and the storage controller is configured to determine, when receiving first failure information indicating a failure in a first storage device in the first storage device group from the first storage device, a first reduction area, which is a logical address range reduced from a logical address space in the first storage device on the basis of the first failure information, specify a first logical storage area corresponding to the first reduction area in the first RAID group, specify a specific virtual storage area in which the first logical storage area is allocated from the virtual volume, select a second logical storage area that is not allocated to the virtual volume from among a plurality of logical storage areas in which some of the plurality of storage devices are allocated, move data stored in the first logical storage area from the first logical storage area to the second logical storage area, allocate the second logical storage area to the specific virtual storage area, and reduce a logical address range corresponding to the first reduction area from a logical address space of each storage device among the first storage device group.

2 . A storage apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the storage controller is configured to specify failure data, which is data lost by the a failure in the first storage device, on the basis of the first failure information, and recover the failure data on the basis of data stored in a storage device other than the first storage device in the first storage device group.

3 . (canceled)

4 . A storage apparatus according to claim 2 , wherein the storage controller is configured to store alternate area information indicating an alternate area, which is a logical address range not used by a RAID group among each logical address space of the plurality of storage devices, make it a condition that a size of the alternate area is greater than or equal to a size of the first reduction area and the alternate area is provided from the storage device in the storage device group other than the first storage device group among the plurality of storage devices, determine whether the alternate area to meet the condition is shown in the alternate area information or not, and when determining that the alternate area to meet the condition is shown in the alternate area information, use the alternate area instead of the first reduction area.

5 .- 6 . (canceled)

7 . A storage apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein the device controller of the first storage device is configured to close a portion where the failure occurs in the first storage device.

8 . A storage apparatus according to claim 7 , wherein
the device controller is configured to store a user capacities, which is a size of a logical address space to be provided from the plurality of nonvolatile semiconductor memories to the storage controller and transmit the stored user capacities to the storage controller, and the storage controller is configured to receive the transmitted user capacities and store the received user capacities.

9 . A storage apparatus according to claim 8 , wherein
the storage controller is configured to transmit, to the first storage device, an instruction for reducing a size of the first reduction area from the user capacity of the first storage device when receiving the first failure information, and a device controller of the first storage device is configured to reduce, according to the instruction, a size of the first reduction area from a user capacity of the first storage device.

10 . A storage apparatus according to claim 9 , wherein the storage controller is configured to detect a minimum usable capacity, which is a minimum value of user capacities of storage devices in the first storage device group, and create the first RAID group using minimum usable capacities of each storage devices in the first storage device group.

11 .- 12 . (canceled)

13 . A storage device according to claim 4 , wherein
the storage controller is configured to create a second RAID group using a second storage device group among the plurality of storage devices, and the storage controller is configured to determine, when receiving second failure information indicating a failure in a second storage device in the second storage device group from the second storage device, a second reduction area, which is a logical address range reduced from a logical address space of the second storage device, on the basis of the second failure information, specify a related area, which is a logical address range corresponding to the second reduction area in a logical address space of a storage device other than the second storage device in the second storage device group, and register the related area in the alternate area information as the alternate area.

14 . A storage apparatus according to claim 4 , wherein the storage controller is configured to register, in the alternate area information, a logical address range in an alternate storage device in the plurality of storage devices as the alternate area.

15 . A storage apparatus control method comprising:
storing, using a storage controller, that provides a host computer with a virtual volume, a logical address space associated with some of the plurality of nonvolatile semiconductor memories in each of a plurality of storage devices and provided to the storage controller, configuring, using the storage controller, a first RAID group using a first storage device group among the plurality of storage devices, dividing, using the storage controller, a logical storage area in the first RAID group into a plurality of pages, and allocating, using the storage controller, on the basis of a write request from the host computer to the virtual volume, one of the plurality of pages in the first RAID group to the virtual volume; detecting, using a device controller in each of the plurality of storage devices, a partial failure in the plurality of nonvolatile semiconductor memories and transmitting, using the device controller, failure information indicating the detected failure to the storage controller; and when the storage controller receives first failure information indicating a failure in a first storage device in the first storage device group from the first storage device, determining, using the storage controller, a first reduction area, which is a logical address range

Assignees

• Hitachi Ltd

Inventors

• Uehara Go
• Homma Shigeo
• Sonoda Koji

Classifications

• G06F11/0793

  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 title

• G06F3/0689

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

• G06F11/2094 Primary

  Redundant storage or storage space (G06F11/2056 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G06F11/0727 Primary

  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 title

• G06F3/0619

  in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors · CPC title