Patent · US Active

Method for the allocation of data on physical media by a file system which optimizes power consumption

US8090924B2 · kind B2 · utility

4Cited by
0References
6Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateMar 11, 2009
Grant dateJan 3, 2012
Priority date
Expiry dateJun 22, 2030

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
  • CPC primaryY02D10/00
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The present invention provides a method for the allocation of data on physical media by a file system which optimizes power consumption. The present invention improves power efficiency of computing devices using file systems by allocating data in a way that allows devices to power down when they are not in use. This is carried out by using an allocation group method to divide the storage system into groups of one or more disk drives. The allocator fills the first group entirely before moving to the second group. The allocator globally allocates blocks within each group. Groups are typically sized to meet the average I/O bandwidth requirement of the application. The method also dynamically increases the number of active allocation groups based on I/O load. This is done by computing the average number of write requests per time period.

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