Patent · US Expired

Fault-tolerant storage system

US6219800A · kind A · utility

59Cited by
3References
12Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJun 19, 1998
Grant dateApr 17, 2001
Priority date
Expiry dateJun 19, 2018

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F2211/1059
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The present invention is a storage system, and method of operation thereof, which provides improved performance over standard RAID-5 without increasing vulnerability to single-disk drive failures. The storage system comprises a processor and a plurality of data storage devices, coupled to the processor, operable to store a plurality of data stripes, each data stripe comprising a plurality of data blocks and a parity block, each data storage device operable to store one data block or the parity block of each data stripe. The storage system stores a dirty stripe bit vector of a data stripe. When an update to a data block in the data stripe is received, an image of the data block as it was when the dirty stripe bit vector was generated is stored. The data block is updated and an image of the updated data block is stored. When a failure of one of the plurality of data storage devices is detected, a bitwise exclusive-OR of the image of the data block as it was when the dirty stripe bit vector was generated and the image of the updated data block to form an intermediate result is generated. The parity block of the data stripe is read and a bitwise exclusive-OR of the intermediate result …

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.