Systems and methods for optimizing write accesses in a storage array

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9886204-B2
Application number	US-201614989635-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 6, 2016
Priority date	Mar 14, 2012
Publication date	Feb 6, 2018
Grant date	Feb 6, 2018

Abstract

A method may include storing data in one or more first-type stripes spanning a plurality of N storage resources and having N−1 data strips for storing the data and a parity strip for storing parity information for the data stored to the particular first-type stripe and each of the plurality of storage resources includes one of a data strip or a parity strip of the particular first-type stripe if the data to be stored exceeds a threshold size. If the data to be stored does not exceed a threshold size, the method may include storing the data in a second-type stripe and a third-type stripe each spanning N storage resources, such that each stripe comprises N−1 data strips for storing the data and a metadata strip for storing address information for the corresponding second-type strip or third-type strip.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A storage array comprising:
a plurality of storage resources; and
a controller communicatively coupled to the plurality of storage resources, the controller configured to:
receive a write operation;
determine whether a size of data to be written to the storage array in accordance with the write operation is greater than a threshold size;
in response to determining that the size of data is greater than the threshold size, store the data in one or more first-type stripes spanning the plurality of storage resources; and
in response to determining that the size of data is not greater than the threshold size:
store the data in a second-type stripe spanning the plurality of storage resources; and
store the data in a third-type stripe, wherein:
the third-type stripe includes a mirror of the second-type stripe;
the third-type stripe spans the plurality of storage resources; and
each individual portion of data stored in the third-type stripe is stored on a storage resource that neighbors the storage resource on which the data in the second-type stripe is stored.

2. A storage array according to claim 1 , wherein the threshold size is equal to the size of a strip.

3. A storage array according to claim 1 , wherein:
each first-type stripe comprises a first plurality of strips;
each second-type stripe comprises a second plurality of strips;
each third-type stripe comprises a third plurality of strips; and
each strip is of equal size.

4. A storage array according to claim 1 , wherein each first-type stripe, second-type stripe, and third-type stripe are of equal size.

5. A storage array according to claim 1 , each first-type stripe comprising a RAID5 stripe.

6. A storage array according to claim 1 , wherein the mirror of the second-type stripe is stored in accordance with RAID1.

7. A storage array according to claim 1 , the controller comprising a RAID controller.

8. An information handling system comprising:
a processor;
a plurality of storage resources; and
a controller communicatively coupled to the plurality of storage resources and the processor, the controller configured to:
receive a write operation from the processor;
determine whether a size of data to be written to the storage array in accordance with the write operation is greater than a threshold size;
in response to determining that the size of data is greater than the threshold size, store the data in one or more first-type stripes spanning the plurality of storage resources; and
in response to determining that the size of data is not greater than the threshold size:
store the data in a second-type stripe spanning the plurality of storage resources; and
store the data in a third-type stripe wherein:
the third-type stripe includes a mirror of the second-type stripe; and
the third-type stripe spans the plurality of storage resources, such that each individual portion of data stored in the third-type stripe is stored on a storage resource that neighbors the storage resource on which the data in the second-type stripe is stored.

9. An information handling system according to claim 8 , wherein the threshold size is equal to the size of a strip.

10. An information handling system according to claim 8 , wherein:
each first-type stripe comprises a first plurality of strips;
each second-type stripe comprises a second plurality of strips;
each third-type stripe comprises a third plurality of strips; and
each strip is of equal size.

11. An information handling system according to claim 8 , wherein each first-type stripe, second-type stripe, and third-type stripe are of equal size.

12. An information handling system according to claim 8 , each first-type stripe comprising a RAID5 stripe.

13. An information handling system according to claim 8 , wherein the mirror of the second-type stripe is stored in accordance with RAID1.

14. An information handling system according to claim 8 , the controller comprising a RAID controller.

15. A method comprising:
receiving a write operation for data to be stored in a storage array comprising a plurality of storage resources;
determining whether a size of data to be written to the storage array in accordance with the write operation is greater than a threshold size;
in response to determining that the size of data is greater than the threshold size, storing the data in one or more first-type stripes spanning the plurality of storage resources; and
in response to determining that the size of data is not greater than the threshold size:
storing the data in a second-type stripe spanning the plurality of storage resources; and
storing the data in a third-type stripe wherein:
the third-type stripe includes a mirror of the second-type stripe; and
the third-type stripe spans the plurality of storage resources, such that each individual portion of data stored in the third-type stripe is stored on a storage resource that neighbors the storage resource on which the data in the second-type stripe is stored.

16. A method according to claim 15 , wherein the threshold size is equal to the size of a strip.

17. A method according to claim 15 , wherein:
each first-type stripe comprises a first plurality of strips;
each second-type stripe comprises a second plurality of strips;
each third-type stripe comprises a third plurality of strips; and
each strip is of equal size.

18. A method according to claim 15 , wherein each first-type stripe, second-type stripe, and third-type stripe are of equal size.

19. A method according to claim 15 , each first-type stripe comprising a RAID5 stripe.

20. A method according to claim 15 , wherein the mirror of the second-type stripe is stored in accordance with RAID1.

Assignees

• Dell Products Lp

Inventors

• Kotzur Gary B

Classifications

• G06F3/0616 Primary

  in relation to life time, e.g. increasing Mean Time Between Failures [MTBF] · CPC title

• G06F3/0638

  Organizing or formatting or addressing of data · CPC title

• G06F3/0689

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

• G06F11/1076 Primary

  Parity data used in redundant arrays of independent storages, e.g. in RAID systems · CPC title

• G06F3/0665

  at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes · CPC title