System and method for disk array data transfer
US5446855A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Feb 7, 1994 |
| Grant date | Aug 29, 1995 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Feb 7, 2014 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F11/1008
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A system for managing I/O requests directed to a disk array comprises a processing unit, predetermined amounts of Random Access Memory (RAM) and Read-Only Memory (ROM), an operating system, a virtual disk driver, an input device, an output device, and a disk array. The virtual disk driver comprises a request modification memory, a pending queue, an active queue, a stripe buffer, a span buffer, and a parity buffer. The system breaks each I/O request received into one or more subrequests according to request type, request length and the storage capacity of a sector-row within the disk array. Subrequests are entered into a pending queue in first-in, first-out (FIFO) order. Subrequests within the pending queue corresponding to write operations directed to a common sector-row are merged into a corresponding array request. Each array request is stored in an active queue. Once the number of array requests exceeds a predetermined constant, each array request is issued to the RAID type disk array. A method for managing I/O requests directed to a disk array comprises the steps of: determining when a virtual disk I/O request directed to the disk array has been received; dividing each virtual …
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.