Accelerated rebuild and zero time rebuild in raid systems

摘要

A RAID data storage system incorporates permanently empty blocks into each stripe, distributed among all the data storage devices, to accelerate rebuild time by reducing the number of blocks that need to be rebuilt in the event of a failure.

主权项

1. A data storage apparatus comprising:
a processor; memory connected to the processor; a plurality of data storage devices connected to the processor, each of the plurality of data storage devices organized into a plurality of equally sized logical data blocks; and computer executable program code configured to execute on the processor, wherein:
the plurality of data storage devices are organized into logical stripes such that one logical data block from each of the plurality of data storage devices is included in each logical stripe;each stripe contains at least one empty block;each of the plurality of data storage devices contains at least one empty block; andthe computer executable program code is configured to maintain each empty block as empty space; and wherein each of the at least one empty blocks is identified by a numerical property unique to said empty block such that empty blocks are identifiable via a predefined algorithm even when the data storage device containing such empty block is unreadable.