Using spare disk drives to overprovision raid groups
US9921912B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Sep 30, 2015 |
| Grant date | Mar 20, 2018 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Oct 31, 2035 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F11/1092
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A technique for managing spare disk drives in a data storage system includes transferring segments of data from disk drives of an operating RAID group to spare regions on a set of spare disk drives to create unused space in the disk drives of the RAID group, thus using the spare regions to overprovision storage in the RAID group. Upon a failure of one of the disk drives in the RAID group, data of the failing disk drive are rebuilt based on the segments of data as well as on data from still-functioning disk drives in the RAID group. Thus, the spare disk drives act not only to overprovision storage for the RAID group prior to disk drive failure, but also to fulfill their role as spares in the event of a disk drive failure.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.