DETAILED ACTION
The present Office Action is in response to Applicant Arguments/Remarks and amended claims filed on 06/04/2026. Claims 1, 8, 9, 15, and 18 have been amended. Claims 7, 16, and 19 have been cancelled. Claims 21-23 have been added. Claims 1-6, 8-15, 17-18, and 20-23 are pending in the application.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Amendments and Arguments
Applicants’ amendments and remarks have been fully and carefully considered, with the Examiner’s response set forth below.
(1)Applicant contends that, regarding claim 1, the combination of Kanno, Bk, and SNIA fail to disclose or suggest the limitation “wherein the one or more storage drives of a given one of the storage tiers are each assigned an increased value of the drive writes per day metric that is determined based at least in part on utilization of less than a full capacity of that storage drive”. Specifically, Applicant argues that “It is important to note that the ‘drive capacity’ referred to in the DWPD computation shown on page 1 of the SNIA reference, relied on by the Examiner in rejecting dependent claim 7, is the full capacity of the drive. See the specification at page 29, lines 9-14, for the same computation of DWPD from TBW, which computation also refers to full storage drive capacity, and not less than a full capacity as recited”. The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
Kanno teaches assigning DWPD values to a plurality of SSD tiers. Furthermore, Kanno teaches setting an over-provision area for each SSD tier. As illustrated in Fig. 3, tier 1 (i.e. area 51) is assigned the largest over-provision area, which corresponds to the highest DWPD value, because “the write amplification of area 51 can be reduced efficiently” (Kanno, [0132]). Kanno further teaches that “Accordingly, since it is possible to efficiently reduce the write amplification of area 51, the program/erase cycles of the physical blocks of area 51 can be reduced. This means that the endurance of area 51 can be improved” ([0132]). Although Kanno does not explicitly teach the limitation “wherein the one or more storage drives of a given one of the storage tiers are each assigned an increased value of the drive writes per day metric that is determined based at least in part on utilization of less than a full capacity of that storage drive”, Kanno discloses the concept that allocating a portion of the total physical capacity of an SSD tier as a reserved (i.e. overprovisioning) capacity reduces write amplification, thereby improving endurance and increasing the DWPD value of the SSD tier, since DWPD is an indicator of drive’s endurance (Kanno, [0085]). SNIA teaches a formula for calculating a DWPD value, and based on this formula, a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the DWPD value is inversely proportional to drive capacity. Accordingly, utilization of less than a full capacity of a storage drive would correspond to an increased DWPD value. Therefore, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Kanno and SNIA by utilizing less than the full capacity of a storage drive in order to achieve a higher endurance metric, such as DWPD. Accordingly, the combination of Kanno and SNIA teaches the above limitations.
(2) The rest of Applicant’s arguments are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
(3) Another iteration of claim analysis has been made. Refer to the corresponding sections of the claim analysis below for details.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, and 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kanno (US2017/0024137), hereinafter Kanno in view of Bk et al. (US10,534,566), hereinafter Bk, and further in view of SNIA Computer, Memory, and Storage – Endurance of NVMe, SAS, and SATA SSDs (Jonmichael Hands, March 2021, Intel Corporation), hereinafter SNIA.
Regarding claims 1, 15, and 18, taking claim 1 as exemplary, Kanno teaches an apparatus comprising:
at least one processing device (Kanno, Fig.1, see host 2) comprising a processor (Kanno, [0297], an information processing apparatus which functions as the host 2; [0298], The information processing apparatus includes a processor (CPU) 101) coupled to a memory (Kanno, [0298], The information processing apparatus includes … a main memory 102; [0299]);
the at least one processing device being configured:
to implement a plurality of storage tiers in a storage system based at least in part on a drive writes per day metric, including at least a first storage tier associated with a first value of the drive writes per day metric and a second storage tier associated with a second value of the drive writes per day metric different than the first value of the drive writes per day metric (Kanno, [0101], The SSD for tier T1 may be required to have an endurance of DWPD=10; [0103], The SSD for tier T2 may be required to have an endurance of DWPD=1), each of the storage tiers comprising one or more storage drives each having assigned thereto the value of the drive writes per day metric of that storage tier (Kanno, [0099], In the hierarchical storage system shown on the left side of FIG. 2, three types of SSDs are used suitably according to the purpose … The SSD for tier T1 is a small-capacity, high-speed SSD; [0101], The SSD for tier T1 may be required to have an endurance of DWPD=10; [0103], The SSD for tier T2 may be required to have an endurance of DWPD=1; [0119]; Fig.3); and to
dynamically move data of the storage system between the storage tiers of the storage system based at least in part on data access frequency in a manner that places more frequently accessed data on one of the storage tiers having a higher value of the drive writes per day metric than another of the storage tiers (Kanno, [0100], The SSD for tier T1 is used as a storage for data having high frequency of access (read/write), that is, data which is frequently updated, for example. Examples of data whose frequency of access is high include metadata of a file system; [0103], The SSD for tier T2 is used as a storage for data which is less frequently updated than the metadata);
wherein the one or more storage drives of a given one of the storage tiers are each assigned an increased value of the drive writes per day metric that is determined based at least in part on utilization of less than a full capacity of that storage drive.
Kanno does not explicitly teach dynamically move data of the storage system between the storage tiers of the storage system based at least in part on data access frequency, and wherein the one or more storage drives of a given one of the storage tiers are each assigned an increased value of the drive writes per day metric that is determined based at least in part on utilization of less than a full capacity of that storage drive, as claimed.
However, Kanno in view of Bk teaches dynamically move data of the storage system between the storage tiers of the storage system based at least in part on data access frequency (Bk, col.2, line 60 – col.3, line 10, Automated storage tiering automates the storage tiering process such that data movement between the tiers is performed in a non-disruptive manner. In automated storage tiering, the application workload is proactively monitored, and active (more frequently accessed) data is automatically moved to a higher performance tier and the inactive (less frequently accessed) data to a higher capacity, lower performance tier) in a manner that places more frequently accessed data on one of the storage tiers having a higher value of the drive writes per day metric than another of the storage tiers (Kanno, [0100], The SSD for tier T1 is used as a storage for data having high frequency of access (read/write), that is, data which is frequently updated, for example. Examples of data whose frequency of access is high include metadata of a file system; [0101], The SSD for tier T1 may be required to have an endurance of DWPD=10; [0103], The SSD for tier T2 is used as a storage for data which is less frequently updated than the metadata … The SSD for tier T2 may be required to have an endurance of DWPD=1).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kanno to incorporate teachings of Bk to periodically perform automated storage tiering such that more frequently accessed data is automatically moved to a first tier with a higher drive writes per day metric while less frequently accessed data is moved to a second tier with a lower drive writes per day metric. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Kanno with Bk because it improves efficiency and performance of the storage system disclosed in Kanno by performing automated non-disruptive storage tiering to ensure data is stored in appropriate storage tiers (BK, col.2, line 60 – col.3, line 10).
The combination of Kanno does not explicitly teach wherein the one or more storage drives of a given one of the storage tiers are each assigned an increased value of the drive writes per day metric that is determined based at least in part on utilization of less than a full capacity of that storage drive, as claimed.
However, the combination of Kanno in view of SNIA teaches wherein the one or more storage drives of a given one of the storage tiers are each assigned an increased value of the drive writes per day metric that is determined based at least in part on utilization of less than a full capacity of that storage drive (page 1, DWPD = TBW/ (365x5xdrive capacity), assume 5-year metric; Note – DWPD value is inversely proportional to drive capacity, therefore, utilization of less than the full capacity of a storage drive would correspond to an increased DWPD value.).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Kanno to incorporate teachings of SINA to determine a DWPD value for a storage drive based on less than the full capacity of a storage drive in order to achieve an increased DWPD value for higher effective storage drive endurance. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of the combination of Kanno with SINA because it improves efficiency of the storage system disclosed in the combination of Kanno by determining/assigning an increased DWPD value of/to a storage drive based on less than full storage capacity for higher storage endurance.
Claims 15 and 18 have similar limitations as claim 1 and they are rejected for the similar reasons.
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Kanno teaches all the features with respect to claim 1 as outlined above. The combination of Kanno further teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the drive writes per day metric for a given one of the storage drives is specified in terms of a numerical value that indicates the number of times that a particular capacity of the given storage drive can be written each day for the length of a designated period of time (Kanno, [0101], DWPD=10 means that for an SSD having a total capacity of 1 TB, writing of 10 TB (=10×1 TB) of data per day can be executed every day for five years.).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Kanno teaches all the features with respect to claim 1 as outlined above. The combination of Kanno further teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the plurality of storage tiers of the storage system include at least one additional storage tier each comprising one or more storage drives having assigned thereto a value of the drive writes per day metric that is different than the first and second values associated with the respective first and second storage tiers (Kanno, [0104], The SSD for tier T3 is used as storage for data which is rarely updated. It may be sufficient for the SSD for T3 to have low durability of DWPD=0.1 or so.).
Regarding claims 9 and 22, taking claim 9 as exemplary, the combination of Kanno teaches all the features with respect to claim 1 as outlined above. The combination of Kanno further teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the at least one processing device is further configured to implement a preference for utilization of the given storage tier having the increased value of the drive writes per day metric in processing incoming write operations (Kanno, [0066], data of the type which is frequently updated (hot data) is written to a specific area (tier) for storing the hot data; [0100], The SSD for tier T1 is used as a storage for data having high frequency of access (read/write), that is, data which is frequently updated; [0101], The SSD for tier T1 may be required to have an endurance of DWPD=10; [0171]-[0173], If the write data is hot data (YES in step S33), the host 2 sends a write command including the ID of the namespace for hot data).
Claim 22 has similar limitations as claim 9 and is rejected for the similar reasons.
Regarding claims 12, 17, and 20, taking claim 12 as exemplary, the combination of Kanno teaches all the features with respect to claim 1 as outlined above. The combination of Kanno further teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein dynamically moving data of the storage system between the storage tiers of the storage system based at least in part on data access frequency comprises periodically rebalancing data across the storage tiers in a manner that places the most frequently accessed data on the storage tier having a highest value of the drive writes per day metric and places the least frequently accessed data on the storage tier having a lowest value of the drive writes per day metric (Bk, col.2, line 60 – col.3, line 10, Automated storage tiering automates the storage tiering process such that data movement between the tiers is performed in a non-disruptive manner. In automated storage tiering, the application workload is proactively monitored, and active (more frequently accessed) data is automatically moved to a higher performance tier and the inactive (less frequently accessed) data to a higher capacity, lower performance tier; Kanno, [0100], The SSD for tier T1 is used as a storage for data having high frequency of access (read/write); [101], The SSD for tier T1 may be required to have an endurance of DWPD=10; [0103], The SSD for tier T2 is used as a storage for data which is less frequently updated than the metadata … The SSD for tier T2 may be required to have an endurance of DWPD=1).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kanno to incorporate teachings of Bk to periodically perform automated storage tiering such that more frequently accessed data is automatically moved to a first tier with a higher drive write per day metric while less frequently accessed data is moved to a second tier with a lower drive write per day metric. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Kanno with Bk because it improves efficiency and performance of the storage system disclosed in Kanno by performing automated non-disruptive storage tiering to ensure data is stored in appropriate storage tiers (BK, col.2, line 60 – col.3, line 10).
Claims 17 and 20 have similar limitations as claim 12 and they are rejected for the similar reasons.
Regarding claim 13, the combination of Kanno teaches all the features with respect to claim 1 as outlined above. The combination of Kanno further teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the at least one processing device is further configured to associate tiering information with respective storage objects of the storage system, the tiering information including a tier level indicator and its corresponding drive writes per day value, a given such storage object being associated with one or more data blocks of the storage system (Kanno, [0076], the hot data is written to an area associated with a certain namespace (NS #1), and the cold data is written to another area associated with another specific namespace (NS #n); [0110], Area 51 is used as a tier storage (tier #1) for storing hot data; [0275]; Fig. 3).
Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Kanno, Bk, and SNIA as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Gupta et al. (US2020/0409568), hereinafter Gupta.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Kanno teaches all the features with respect to claim 1 as outlined above. The combination of Kanno does not explicitly teach the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the storage system comprises a distributed storage system with a plurality of storage nodes and wherein each of one or more of the storage nodes of the distributed storage system implements the plurality of storage tiers based at least in part on the drive writes per day metric, as claimed.
However, the combination of Kanno in view of Gupta teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the storage system comprises a distributed storage system with a plurality of storage nodes (Gupta, [0033]; [0035], server; [0038], Data is then distributed across the drives using various techniques, referred to as “RAID levels) and wherein each of one or more of the storage nodes of the distributed storage system implements the plurality of storage tiers based at least in part on the drive writes per day metric (Gupta, [0062]; [0067], the method 1200 may determine that a first RAID array 304 or storage tier in the storage environment requires higher performance and thus storage drives 204 of a higher writes-per-day classification and a second RAID array 304 or storage tier in the storage environment can utilize storage drives 204 having a lower writes-per-day classification).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Kanno to incorporate teachings of Gupta to include a distributed storage system with a plurality of storage servers to implement a plurality of storage tiers based at least in part on the drive writes per data metric. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of the combination of Kanno with Gupta because it improves efficiency of the storage system disclosed in the combination of Kanno by periodically reassigning storage drives to appropriate RAID arrays and storage tiers based on drive writes per day metric.
Claim(s) 4 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Kanno, Bk, and SNIA as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Bode et al. (US2021/0263655), hereinafter Bode.
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Kanno teaches all the features with respect to claim 1 as outlined above. The combination of Kanno does not explicitly teach the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the first value of the drive writes per day metric is set to a value that is greater than a drive writes per day value indicated in a manufacturer specification of the one or more storage drives of the first storage tier, as claimed.
However, the combination of Kanno in view of Bode teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the first value of the drive writes per day metric is set to a value that is greater than a drive writes per day value indicated in a manufacturer specification of the one or more storage drives of the first storage tier (Bode, [0052], Responsive to write rate 230 for writes 220 to section 228 in sections 222 in current endurance tier 232 in endurance tiers 210 exceeding maximum recommended write rate 234 for current endurance tier 232 during period of time 224, storage manager 216 moves data 226 from section 228 in current endurance tier 232 to higher endurance tier 236 in endurance tiers 210; [0058], Current endurance tier 232 can be a mid-level tier with a maximum write rate of 3.0 DWPD specified by the manufacturer).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Kanno to incorporate teachings of Bode to set a higher endurance tier with a higher drive write per day value (i.e. higher than 3.0 DWPD) than a lower endurance tier which has a drive writes per day value indicated in a manufacturer specification (i.e. 3.0 DWPD). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of the combination of Kanno with Bode because it improves efficiency of the storage system disclosed in the combination of Bode by storing data with higher write rate to a storage tier having higher drive writes per data value.
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Kanno teaches all the features with respect to claim 1 as outlined above. The combination of Kanno does not explicitly teach the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the second value of the drive writes per day metric is set to a value that is the same as a drive writes per day value indicated in a manufacturer specification of the storage drives of the second storage tier, as claimed.
However, the combination of Kanno in view of Bode teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the second value of the drive writes per day metric is set to a value that is the same as a drive writes per day value indicated in a manufacturer specification of the storage drives of the second storage tier (Bode, [0055], responsive to write rate 230 for writes 220 to section 228 in current endurance tier 232 falling below minimum recommended write rate 240 for current endurance tier 232 during period of time 224, storage manager 216 moves data 226 from section 228 in current endurance tier 232 to lower endurance tier 242 in endurance tiers 210 with lower minimum recommended write rate 244 than minimum recommended write rate 240 for current endurance tier 232; [0058], Current endurance tier 232 can be a mid-level tier with a maximum write rate of 3.0 DWPD specified by the manufacturer).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Kanno to incorporate teachings of Bode to set a lower endurance tier with a lower drive write per day value (i.e. lower than 3.0 DWPD) than a higher endurance tier which has a drive writes per day value indicated in a manufacturer specification (i.e. 3.0 DWPD). A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of the combination of Kanno with Bode because it improves efficiency of the storage system disclosed in the combination of Bode by storing data with lower write rate to a storage tier having lower drive writes per data value.
Claim(s) 8 and 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Kanno, Bk, and SNIA as applied to claims 1 and 18 respectively above, and further in view of Rijo et al. (US11,734,110), hereinafter Rijo.
Regarding claims 8 and 21, taking claim 8 as exemplary, the combination of Kanno teaches all the features with respect to claim 1 as outlined above. The combination of Kanno further teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein the increased value of the drive writes per day metric is greater than a drive writes per day value indicated in a manufacturer specification of the one or more storage drives of the given storage tier, as claimed.
However, the combination of Kanno in view of Rijo teaches the apparatus of claim 7 wherein the increased value of the drive writes per day metric is greater than a drive writes per day value indicated in a manufacturer specification of the one or more storage drives of the given storage tier (Rijo, col.7, line 58 – col.8, line21, Drive Write Per Day (DWPD), which equates to full storage device capacity write and erase per day of operation for ˜5 years),).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Kanno to incorporate teachings of Rijo that manufacturer DWPD corresponds to a full storage device capacity. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of the combination of Kanno with Rijo because it improves efficiency of the storage system disclosed in the combination of Kanno by determining accurate endurance value of a storage device.
Claim 21 has similar limitations as claim 8 and is rejected for the similar reasons.
Claim(s) 10 and 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Kanno, Bk, and SNIA as applied to claims 1 and 18 respectively above, and further in view of Morley et al. (US11,593,189), hereinafter Morley.
Regarding claims 10 and 23, taking claim 10 as exemplary, the combination of Kanno teaches all the features with respect to claim 1 as outlined above. The combination of Kanno does not explicitly teach the apparatus of claim 1 wherein different assigned values of the drive writes per day metric for different ones of the storage tiers are determined based at least in part on respective different write amplification factors, as claimed.
However, the combination of Kanno in view of Morley teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein different assigned values of the drive writes per day metric for different ones of the storage tiers are determined based at least in part on respective different write amplification factors (Morley, col.11, lines 34-38, In sub-step 250, configuration evaluator 66 applies write amplification corrections to the write information for each DSS 33 in that bucket 91 to yield a DWPD value for that DSS 33.).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Kanno to incorporate teachings of Morley to adjust the DWPD metric assigned to each SSD tier based on its write amplification value. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of the combination of Kanno with Morley because it improves efficiency and flexibility of the storage system disclosed in the combination of Kanno by allowing different DWPD metrics to be assigned to different storage tier based on the characteristics of the data stored in the storage tiers.
Claim 23 has similar limitations as claim 10 and is rejected for the similar reasons.
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Kanno, Bk, and SNIA as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Sarkar et al. (US2019/0108888), hereinafter Sarkar.
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Kanno teaches all the features with respect to claim 1 as outlined above. The combination of Kanno further teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein assignment of different values of the drive writes per day metric for different ones of the storage tiers is controlled at least in part by an operating system tool of the storage system (Sarkar, [0034], The controller 110 determines the number of drive-writes per day for data storage system 100 based on the number of write commands received from host system 150, total amount of the written data and the data-storage capacity of the storage system; claim 18, a kernel within the solid-state storage device).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Kanno to incorporate teachings of Sarkar to determine and assign DWPD values for storage drives at least in part by using an operating system tool of a storage system. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of the combination of Kanno with Sarkar because it improves efficiency of the storage system disclosed in the combination of Kanno by having a storage controller to determine DWPD metric rather than a host since it’s easier for the storage controller to obtain metrics on storage drives than the host.
Claim(s) 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Kanno, Bk, and SNIA as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Gupta et al. (US2020/0409568), hereinafter Gupta and Bode et al. (US2021/0263655), hereinafter Bode.
Regarding claim 14, the combination of Kanno teaches all the features with respect to claim 1 as outlined above. The combination of Kanno does not explicitly teach the apparatus of claim 1 wherein each of the storage drive of a given one of the storage tiers is assigned a same value of the drive writes per day metric that is different than a value of the drive writes per day metric indicated in a manufacturer specification of that storage drive of the given storage tier, as claimed.
However, the combination of Kanno in view of Gupta teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein each of the storage drive of a given one of the storage tiers is assigned a same value of the drive writes per day metric (Gupta, [0067], storage drives 204 of the same writes-per-day classification in the same storage groups; [0006], storage groups (e.g., RAID arrays, storage tiers, workloads, etc.)).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Kanno to incorporate teachings of Gupta to assign a same writes-per-data value to each of the storage drives of a given tier. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of the combination of Kanno with Gupta because it improves efficiency of the storage system disclosed in the combination of Kanno by periodically reassigning storage drives of a specific writes-per-day to appropriate RAID arrays and/or storage tiers.
The combination of Kanno does not explicitly teach value of the drive writes per day metric that is different than the value of the drive writes per day metric indicated in a manufacturer specification of that storage drive of the given storage tier, as claimed.
However, the combination of Kanno in view of Bode teaches the apparatus of claim 1 wherein each of the storage drive of a given one of the storage tiers is assigned a same value of the drive writes per day metric that is different than a value of the drive writes per day metric indicated in a manufacturer specification of that storage drive of the given storage tier (Gupta, [0067]; Bode, [0053], Maximum recommended write rates 214 for endurance tiers 210 for solid state storage devices 208 are lower than the maximum write rates specified by a manufacturer of the solid state storage devices. The maximum write rate specified by the manufacturer can be measured, for example, as drive writes per day (DWPD); Kanno, [0073], the greater the write amplification (WA) is, the faster the program/erase cycles of the physical block reaches its upper limit. This causes degradation in the endurance and life of the SSD 3; [0081]).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the combination of Kanno to incorporate teachings of Bode to assign a storage drive with a drive writes per day value lower than the one specified in a manufacturer specification. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of the combination of Kanno with Bode because it improves efficiency of the storage system disclosed in the combination of Bode by storing data with higher write rate to a storage tier having higher drive writes per data value.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/NANCI N WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2137
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