Internal storage manager for RAID devices

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9417822-B1
Application number	US-201313837586-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Mar 15, 2013
Priority date	Mar 15, 2013
Publication date	Aug 16, 2016
Grant date	Aug 16, 2016

Abstract

The present invention is directed to systems and methods for the automatic management of volumes, such as creation, migration, and rebuilding for redundant array of independent disks (RAID). The automated management is triggered upon the installation of a new drive in a network attached storage (NAS) device and proceeds according to a user-specified setting. The management is automatic in that user intervention would not be required or requested and would be triggered transparently upon the insertion of a new drive into the NAS device. The embodiments may be employed in other types of multi-drive devices, such as direct attached storage devices, storage area networks, external drives. In addition, the embodiments may be employed with different types of storage media, such as solid-state drives, hybrid drives, etc., in addition to hard disk drives.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of creating a volume within a storage device, said method comprising:
receiving user input selecting one of a finite number of protection settings for a storage device, the user input being provided using a mechanical switch on an enclosure of the storage device having a finite number of positions, each of the finite number of positions corresponding to a different one of the finite number of protection settings;
detecting insertion of a drive into the enclosure of the storage device;
selecting a redundancy configuration of a plurality of different redundancy configurations based on both:
the user-selected protection setting; and
a number of drives associated with the storage device, the drives associated with the storage device including the inserted drive; and

creating, automatically by the storage device, a volume according to the selected redundancy configuration, the volume comprising at least part of the inserted drive.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein creating the volume comprises:
when the number of drives is determined to be one, creating, automatically by the storage device, a volume of a first redundancy type using the drives associated with the storage device based on the user-selected protection setting;
when the number of drives is determined to be two, creating, automatically by the storage device, a volume of a second redundancy type using the drives associated with the storage device based on the user-selected protection setting; and
when the number of drives is determined to be greater than two, creating, automatically by the storage device, a volume of a third redundancy type using the drives associated with the storage device based on the user-selected protection setting.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein:
when the user-selected protection setting is a maximum protection setting, the first redundancy type is a joined body of disks (JBOD) scheme, the second redundancy type is a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) 1 scheme, and the third redundancy type is a RAID 5 scheme; and
when the user-selected protection setting is a maximum capacity protection setting, the first redundancy type is a JBOD scheme, and the second and third redundancy types are RAID 0 schemes.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein creating the volume comprises configuring a plurality of drives as a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) 1 volume when two drives have been inserted into the storage device enclosure and the protection setting that the storage device is set to is a maximum protection setting.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein creating the volume comprises configuring a plurality of drives as a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) 5 volume when at least three drives have been inserted into the storage device enclosure and the protection setting that the storage device is set to is a maximum protection setting.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the finite number of protection settings consists of two settings.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein one of the two protection settings is a maximum capacity setting that instructs the storage device to maximize capacity of a logical volume presented to a user.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein one of the two protection settings is a maximum protection setting that instructs the storage device to maximize the redundancy of a logical volume presented to a user.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a user input requesting a change to the protection setting that the storage device is set to; and
migrating, without requiring further user input, a configuration of the volume based on the user input.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
detecting insertion of an additional drive into the storage device enclosure; and
migrating, without requiring further user input, a configuration of the volume based on the additional drive.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a size of the inserted drive relative to other drives of the drives associated with the storage device;
determining which drive of the drives associated with the storage device has the smallest capacity;
determining a number of extents available across the drives associated with the storage device based on the drive having the smallest capacity;
performing said creating the volume at least in part by configuring the volume to include a single extent of each of the drives associated with the storage device; and
creating an additional volume including a single extent of each of the drives associated with the storage device except for the drive that has the smallest capacity.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
detecting an available capacity of at least one of the drives associated with the storage device; and
migrating, without requiring user input, a configuration of the volume based on the available capacity of the at least one of the drives associated with the storage device.

13. A method of migrating data, said method comprising:
receiving user input selecting one or a finite number of protection settings for a storage device, the user input being provided using a mechanical switch on an enclosure of the storage device having a finite number of positions, each of the finite number of positions corresponding to a different one of the finite number of protection settings;
detecting insertion of a drive into the enclosure of the storage device;
determining a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) level of protection based on both:
the user-selected protection setting; and
a number of drives associated with the storage device enclosure, the drives associated with the storage device enclosure including the inserted drive;

determining a size of a volume provided by the storage device;
determining a size of the inserted drive relative to other drives of the drives associated with the storage device enclosure; and
migrating at least a portion of storage provided by the inserted drive to a new volume based on the user-selected protection setting and the size of the inserted drive relative to the other drives of the drives associated with the storage device enclosure.

14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising migrating, without user interaction, at least a portion of storage provided by the inserted drive to at least one volume with a higher RAID level of protection based on the RAID level of protection, the user-selected protection setting, and the size of the inserted drive relative to the other drives associated with the storage device enclosure.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising:
determining storage available for the at least one volume with the higher RAID level of protection.

16. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:
detecting a failure of one of the drives associated with the storage device enclosure;
detecting insertion of a new drive that replaces the failed drive; and
rebuilding the new volume in response to the insertion of the new drive and based on a size of the new drive and the number of drives associated with the storage device enclosure.

17. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:
migrating at least a portion of storage provided by the inserted drive to a RAID 5 level of protection when the storage device enclosure has at least three drives associated therewith and based on the user-selected protection setting.

18. A network attached storage device comprising:
an enclosure having a mechanical switch associated therewith that has a finite number of p

Assignees

• Western Digital Tech Inc

Inventors

• Ballance Gary E

Classifications

• G06F3/0637

  Permissions · CPC title

• G06F3/0689 Primary

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

• G06F3/0629

  Configuration or reconfiguration of storage systems · CPC title

• G06F3/0607

  by facilitating the process of upgrading existing storage systems, e.g. for improving compatibility between host and storage device · CPC title