DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged.
Claim Objections
Claims 1 and 8 objected to because of the following informalities: Independent claims 1 and 8 contain the limitation “transferring the temporarily staged data … to perform a commit operation”. This language makes it unclear whether the transferring of staged data is done to perform a future commit operation, or is done as part of a commit operation. Rather, independent claim 14 contains the limitation “perform a commit operation by transferring the temporarily staged data ….” The examiner recommends that claims 1 and 8 be amended to recite the claim limitation in the same form as that of independent claim 14, thus making it clear that the transferring of staged data is done as part of a commit operation, rather than setting up a potential future operation.
Appropriate correction is required.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claim(s) 1-20 rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-12 of U.S. Patent No. 11,789,611. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the current application recite limitations that are previously recited as the claims of the above patented application, as shown in the table below. The differences present do not amount to significant distinctions, such as the inclusion of the limitation performed “by the computing device” or referring to a physical zone as “identified physical zone” do not make the claims patentably distinct from one another.
App. #19/190,994 (current)
Patent No. 11,789,611
1. A method implemented by a computing device and comprising: identifying, in response to a received write operation, a first physical zone and a second physical zone that are within a zoned namespace solid-state drive and mapped to a logical zone;
temporarily staging data to be written as a result of the received write operation in a zone random write area associated with the second physical zone,
wherein the temporarily staged data includes missing data read from the first physical zone;
and transferring the temporarily staged data to the second physical zone, when a storage threshold of the zone random write area is determined to have been reached, to perform a commit operation.
1. A method, comprising: identifying, by a computing device, in response to a received write operation a first physical zone and a second physical zone that are within a zoned namespace solid-state drive and mapped to a logical zone …
temporarily staging, by the computing device, other data to be written as a result of the received write operation in a zone random write area associated with the identified second physical zone,
wherein the temporarily staged other data includes missing data read from the first physical zone;
transferring, by the computing device, the temporarily staged other data to the identified second physical zone when a storage threshold of the zone random write area is determined to have been reached to perform a commit operation;
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first physical zone comprises a copy of an older version of other data and the second physical zone comprises another copy of a newer version of the other data.
Claim 1. (Cont) wherein the first physical zone comprises a copy of an older version of data and the second physical zone comprises another copy of a newer version of the data
3. The method of claim 2, further comprising erasing the older version of the other data from the first physical zone, when an end of the second physical zone is determined to have been reached subsequent to the commit operation, in order to make the first physical zone available for reuse.
Claim 1. (Cont) erasing, by the computing device, the older version of the data from the first physical zone, when an end of the second physical zone is determined to have been reached subsequent to the commit operation, in order to make the first physical zone available for reuse.
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising destaging the zone random write area after transferring the temporarily staged data.
2. The method as set forth in claim 1, further comprising destaging, by the computing device, the zone random write area after transferring the temporarily staged other data.
5. The method of claim 1, further comprising servicing a request to read additional data from the first physical zone, when the request to read the additional data is referenced to a location beyond a current location of the zone random write area.
3. The method as set forth in claim 1, further comprising servicing, by the computing device, a request to read additional data from the identified first physical zone, when the request to read the additional data is referenced to a location beyond a current location of the zone random write area …
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising servicing a request to read additional data from the second physical zone, when the request to read the additional data is referenced to a location before a current location of the zone random write area.
Claim 3. (Cont) … and from the identified second physical zone, when the request to read the additional data is referenced to another location before the current location of the zone random write area.
7. The method of claim 1, further comprising transferring the temporarily staged data to the second physical zone upon receipt of a commit command.
4. The method as set forth in claim 1, further comprising transferring, by the computing device, the temporarily staged other data to the identified second physical zone upon receipt of a commit command.
Similar to the above claims, corresponding non-transitory machine readable medium and device claims 8-20 are also rejected under non-statutory double patenting as corresponding to claims 5-12 in US Patent No. 11,789,611.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-4, 7-10, 13-17 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Karr (US Publication No. 2021/0326048 – “Karr”) in view of Sokolov et al. (US Publication No. 2017/0220264 – “Sokolov”) in further view of Viraraghavan et al. (US Publication No. 2020/0363979 – “Viraraghavan”).
Regarding claim 8, Karr teaches A non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions comprising executable code that, when executed by at least one computing device, causes the computing device to: (Karr paragraph [0234], A non-transitory computer-readable medium as referred to herein may include any non-transitory storage medium that participates in providing data (e.g., instructions) that may be read and/or executed by a computing device (e.g., by a processor of a computing device). For example, a non-transitory computer-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, any combination of non-volatile storage media and/or volatile storage media. Exemplary non-volatile storage media include, but are not limited to, read-only memory, flash memory, a solid-state drive, a magnetic storage device (e.g., a hard disk, a floppy disk, magnetic tape, etc.), ferroelectric random-access memory (“RAM”), and an optical disc (e.g., a compact disc, a digital video disc, a Blu-ray disc, etc.). Exemplary volatile storage media include, but are not limited to, RAM (e.g., dynamic RAM). Non-transitory CRM may store instructions for execution) a first physical zone and a second physical zone (Karr Fig. 8A; The storage drive may contain a plurality of physical zones, see Karr paragraph [0052], In implementations, storage drive 171A-F may be one or more zoned storage devices. In some implementations, the one or more zoned storage devices may be a shingled HDD. In implementations, the one or more storage devices may be a flash-based SSD. In a zoned storage device, a zoned namespace on the zoned storage device can be addressed by groups of blocks that are grouped and aligned by a natural size, forming a number of addressable zones. In implementations utilizing an SSD, the natural size may be based on the erase block size of the SSD. In some implementations, the zones of the zoned storage device may be defined during initialization of the zoned storage device. In implementations, the zones may be defined dynamically as data is written to the zoned storage device) temporarily stage other data to be written as a result of the received write operation in a zone random write area associated with the second physical zone, (Karr paragraph [0108], The physical storage is divided into named regions based on application usage in some embodiments. The NVRAM 204 is a contiguous block of reserved memory in the non-volatile solid state storage 152 DRAM 216, and is backed by NAND flash. NVRAM 204 is logically divided into multiple memory regions written for two as spool (e.g., spool_region). Space within the NVRAM 204 spools is managed by each authority 168 independently. Each device provides an amount of storage space to each authority 168. That authority 168 further manages lifetimes and allocations within that space. Examples of a spool include distributed transactions or notions. When the primary power to a non-volatile solid state storage 152 unit fails, onboard super-capacitors provide a short duration of power hold up. During this holdup interval, the contents of the NVRAM 204 are flushed to flash memory 206. On the next power-on, the contents of the NVRAM 204 are recovered from the flash memory 206. Data associated with a write command may be temporarily stored (i.e., staged) in a zone random write area (i.e., NVRAM) which will subsequently be flushed to the physical zone upon certain conditions) and transfer the temporarily staged other data to the second physical zone, when a storage threshold of the zone random write area is determined to have been reached, to perform a commit operation (Karr paragraph [0074], For example, a recalculated version of RAM content may be transferred after a storage controller has determined that an operation has fully committed across the storage system, or when fast-write memory on the device has reached a certain used capacity, or after a certain amount of time, to ensure improve safety of the data or to release addressable fast-write capacity for reuse. This mechanism may be used, for example, to avoid a second transfer over a bus (e.g., 128a, 128b) from the storage controllers 125a, 125b. In one embodiment, a recalculation may include compressing data, attaching indexing or other metadata, combining multiple data segments together, performing erasure code calculations, etc. A commit operation may be performed to transfer staged data to a second physical zone (i.e., newer/updated zone) upon a condition being met, including a capacity threshold).
Karr does not teach identify, in response to a received write operation, a first physical zone and a second physical zone that are within a zoned namespace solid-state drive and mapped to a logical zone, wherein the first physical zone comprises a copy of an older version of data and the second physical zone comprises another copy of a newer version of the data; wherein the temporarily staged other data includes missing data read from the first physical zone.
However, Sokolov teaches identify, in response to a received write operation, a first physical zone and a second physical zone that are within a zoned namespace solid-state drive and mapped to a logical zone, (Sokolov Fig. 1; see host zone associated with LBAs (logical zone) mapping to at least two distinct physical zones (see Ref #140 and #145); This can be done in response to a write command, see Sokolov paragraph [0019], In one implementation, the foregoing is addressed by a storage device controller that duplicatively maps host logical block addresses (LBAs) to multiple physical locations on a media. For example, a consecutive range of host logical block addresses (LBAs) may be simultaneously mapped to two or more contiguous physical storage regions on an overprovisioned storage drive. In this respect, an update to data may be performed by selectively updating data in one of the associated regions selected based on a degree of processing overhead associated with a prospective write operation) wherein the temporarily staged other data includes missing data read from the first physical zone; (Sokolov paragraph [0075], To fill the gap between the data segment 802 and the data segment 803, the data storage device 800 reads missing block(s) from a data track 804 of data from the Source Physical Zone (via a read operation 801) and attaches those block(s) to the data segment 803 so that a first portion of the Destination Physical Zone can be written to consecutively, in a sequential write order without any gaps, as illustrated by a write operation 805. Thus, after the write, a data track 814 includes the data originally stored in the data track 804. The temporarily staged data that is to be transferred to the physical zone may include missing data, such as part of a copy forward operation, also see Sokolov paragraph [0021], In some implementations of the disclosed technology, the storage device 110 executes writes of new data to the media cache, and the new data is subsequently moved to main store locations, such as during idle time of the storage device. In still other implementations, the storage device 110 uses various data mapping, migration, and steering techniques, collectively herein referred to as “forward zone management” to execute random and/or sequential writes of new data directly to the main store without writing the new data to the media cache).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Karr with those of Sokolov. Sokolov teaches a memory structure including a logical zone mapping a first and second physical zones as part of write operations, as well as staging missing data, which can allow for more advanced and dynamic zone mapping for optimizing operation execution (i.e., see Sokolov paragraph [0032], In one example implementation, the storage device 200 is a shingled magnetic recording device. Due to overprovisioning of the storage device 200, a storage device controller statically or dynamically maps some LBAs to two or more shingled data bands. For example, a data band identifiable by LBAs 100-200 may be simultaneously mapped to two physical data bands—a “source data band” and a “destination data band.” When data of the source data band is updated, the storage device may selectively forward (e.g., migrate) valid data from the source data band to the destination data band. This result is explored in greater detail below with respect to the following figures. Also see Sokolov paragraph [0041], At this point in time, the data management system 300 may begin to execute other pending access commands, such as those related to areas of the storage medium 312 not included in the Source Physical Zone or the Destination Physical Zone. While mapped to both the Source Physical Zone and Destination Physical Zone, the Host Zone is considered an “in-process” region because it has some valid data in the Source Physical Zone (e.g., the entire associated band except for the target data track 316) and some valid data in the Destination Physical Zone (e.g., the target data track 322). In time, the in-process Host Zone may be “completed” by migrating all corresponding valid data to a common physical zone. However, by leaving the Host Zone temporarily “in-process,” write delays can be mitigated as compared to other existing solutions).
Karr in view of Sokolov does not teach wherein the first physical zone comprises a copy of an older version of data and the second physical zone comprises another copy of a newer version of the data.
However, Viraraghavan teaches wherein the first physical zone comprises a copy of an older version of data and the second physical zone comprises another copy of a newer version of the data (Viraraghavan paragraph [0003], Append only storage devices keep an entire history of all changes, deletes and updates to data written to a storage device. With append only storage, data is sequentially written to zones (i.e., data partitions or logical blocks) of a predetermined, fixed size. When data stored in a zone needs to be altered (i.e., updated, modified or deleted), a new version of the data is written to a new zone and the old version is marked invalid. When deleting data from append only storage, a logical delete is performed, whereby the data is flagged as “deleted,” but physically remains on the storage device. Accordingly, the memory allocated to the data becomes invalid (i.e., the associated memory is no longer referenced by an index). A first zone may be used to store older or outdated data, while a second zone contains an updated or newer copy of the data).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Karr and Sokolov with those of Viraraghavan. Viraraghavan teaches using a plurality of physical zones where each physical zone can be targeted towards older/outdated data or newer/updated data, which can improve the zone access for read/write operations and increase command processing speed (i.e., see Viraraghavan paragraph [0018], Embodiments of the present invention provide for the generation of an improved database structure for append only storage devices that is designed to: (i) improve the way a computer stores, retrieves and deletes data in memory, (ii) allows for more effective storage of data on append only storage devices for performing logical deletions of objects and (iii) improves and/or eliminates the process for reclaiming physical memory space occupied by invalid objects. In these embodiments, the number of table lookups and logical deletions for objects that have expired is minimized during the operation of a storage device by co-locating objects in the same zone based on their scheduled expiration time, thereby improving the performance of the storage device. Furthermore, embodiments of the present invention reduce and/or eliminate the need for physically accessing the storage device when performing a reclaim process since individual objects need not be physically copied from memory, which ultimately improves the performance of the storage device).
Claims 1-2 and 14-15 are the corresponding method and device claims to the non-transitory computer readable medium claim 8. They are rejected with the same references and rationale.
Regarding claim 9, Karr in view of Sokolov in further view of Viraraghavan teaches The non-transitory machine-readable medium as set forth in claim 8, wherein the executable code, when executed by the computing device, further causes the computing device (Karr paragraph [0234], A non-transitory computer-readable medium as referred to herein may include any non-transitory storage medium that participates in providing data (e.g., instructions) that may be read and/or executed by a computing device (e.g., by a processor of a computing device). For example, a non-transitory computer-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, any combination of non-volatile storage media and/or volatile storage media. Exemplary non-volatile storage media include, but are not limited to, read-only memory, flash memory, a solid-state drive, a magnetic storage device (e.g., a hard disk, a floppy disk, magnetic tape, etc.), ferroelectric random-access memory (“RAM”), and an optical disc (e.g., a compact disc, a digital video disc, a Blu-ray disc, etc.). Exemplary volatile storage media include, but are not limited to, RAM (e.g., dynamic RAM). Non-transitory CRM may store instructions for execution) to erase the older version of the data from the first physical zone, (Viraraghavan paragraph [0003], Append only storage devices keep an entire history of all changes, deletes and updates to data written to a storage device. With append only storage, data is sequentially written to zones (i.e., data partitions or logical blocks) of a predetermined, fixed size. When data stored in a zone needs to be altered (i.e., updated, modified or deleted), a new version of the data is written to a new zone and the old version is marked invalid. When deleting data from append only storage, a logical delete is performed, whereby the data is flagged as “deleted,” but physically remains on the storage device. Accordingly, the memory allocated to the data becomes invalid (i.e., the associated memory is no longer referenced by an index). A first zone may be used to store older or outdated data, while a second zone contains an updated or newer copy of the data) when an end of the second physical zone is determined to have been reached subsequent to the commit operation, in order to make the first physical zone available for reuse (Karr paragraph [0057], The mapping from a zone to an erase block (or to a shingled track in an HDD) may be arbitrary, dynamic, and hidden from view. The process of opening a zone may be an operation that allows a new zone to be dynamically mapped to underlying storage of the zoned storage device, and then allows data to be written through appending writes into the zone until the zone reaches capacity. The zone can be finished at any point, after which further data may not be written into the zone. When the data stored at the zone is no longer needed, the zone can be reset which effectively deletes the zone's content from the zoned storage device, making the physical storage held by that zone available for the subsequent storage of data. After performing the commit/destaging operation, a zone end may be reached, where the data can be deleted to make the zone available for reuse).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Karr and Sokolov with those of Viraraghavan. Viraraghavan teaches using a plurality of physical zones where each physical zone can be targeted towards older/outdated data or newer/updated data, which can improve the zone access for read/write operations and increase command processing speed (i.e., see Viraraghavan paragraph [0018], Embodiments of the present invention provide for the generation of an improved database structure for append only storage devices that is designed to: (i) improve the way a computer stores, retrieves and deletes data in memory, (ii) allows for more effective storage of data on append only storage devices for performing logical deletions of objects and (iii) improves and/or eliminates the process for reclaiming physical memory space occupied by invalid objects. In these embodiments, the number of table lookups and logical deletions for objects that have expired is minimized during the operation of a storage device by co-locating objects in the same zone based on their scheduled expiration time, thereby improving the performance of the storage device. Furthermore, embodiments of the present invention reduce and/or eliminate the need for physically accessing the storage device when performing a reclaim process since individual objects need not be physically copied from memory, which ultimately improves the performance of the storage device).
Claims 3 and 16 are the corresponding method and device claims to non-transitory computer readable medium claim 9. They are rejected with the same references and rationale.
Regarding claim 10, Karr in view of Sokolov in further view of Viraraghavan teaches The non-transitory machine-readable medium as set forth in claim 8, wherein the executable code, when executed by the computing device, further causes the computing device to (see Karr as above) destage the zone random write area after transferring the temporarily staged other data (Karr paragraph [0074], For example, a recalculated version of RAM content may be transferred after a storage controller has determined that an operation has fully committed across the storage system, or when fast-write memory on the device has reached a certain used capacity, or after a certain amount of time, to ensure improve safety of the data or to release addressable fast-write capacity for reuse. This mechanism may be used, for example, to avoid a second transfer over a bus (e.g., 128a, 128b) from the storage controllers 125a, 125b. In one embodiment, a recalculation may include compressing data, attaching indexing or other metadata, combining multiple data segments together, performing erasure code calculations, etc. A commit operation may be performed to transfer staged data to a second physical zone (i.e., newer/updated zone) upon a condition being met, including a capacity threshold).
Claims 4 and 17 are the corresponding method and device claims to non-transitory computer readable medium claim 10. They are rejected with the same references and rationale.
Regarding claim 13, Karr in view of Sokolov in further view of Viraraghavan teaches The non-transitory machine-readable medium as set forth in claim 8, wherein the executable code, when executed by the computing device, further causes the computing device to (see Karr as above) transfer the temporarily staged other data to the second physical zone upon receipt of a commit command (Karr paragraph [0074], For example, a recalculated version of RAM content may be transferred after a storage controller has determined that an operation has fully committed across the storage system, or when fast-write memory on the device has reached a certain used capacity, or after a certain amount of time, to ensure improve safety of the data or to release addressable fast-write capacity for reuse. This mechanism may be used, for example, to avoid a second transfer over a bus (e.g., 128a, 128b) from the storage controllers 125a, 125b. In one embodiment, a recalculation may include compressing data, attaching indexing or other metadata, combining multiple data segments together, performing erasure code calculations, etc. A commit operation may be performed to transfer staged data to a second physical zone (i.e., newer/updated zone) upon a condition being met, including a capacity threshold).
Claims 7 and 20 are the corresponding method and device claims to non-transitory computer readable medium claim 13. They are rejected with the same references and rationale.
Claim(s) 5-6, 11-12 and 18-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Karr in view of Sokolov in further view of Viraraghavan as applied to claims 1, 8 and 14 above, and further in view of Bennett et al. (US Publication No. 2021/0081330 – “Bennett”).
Regarding claim 11, Karr in view of Sokolov in further view of Viraraghavan and further in view of Bennett teaches The non-transitory machine-readable medium as set forth in claim 8, wherein the executable code, when executed by the computing device, further causes the computing device to (see Karr as above) service a request to read additional data from the first physical zone, (Bennett paragraph [0040], Method 300 begins at operation 350, where the host device writes a command into a submission queue as an entry. The host device may write one or more commands into the submission queue at operation 350. The commands may be read commands or write commands. The host device may comprise one or more submission queues. The host device may write one or more commands to the submission queue in any order (i.e., a submission order), regardless of the sequential write order of the one or more commands (i.e., a sequential processing order). The physical zone may receive additional/subsequent read or write commands for data stored in the zone) when the request to read the additional data is referenced to a location beyond a current location of the zone random write area (see Bennett Fig. 4A, writer pointer position; Bennett paragraph [0047], In the storage device 400, the ZNS 402 is the quantity of NVM that can be formatted into logical blocks such that the capacity is divided into a plurality of zones 406a-406n (collectively referred to as zones 406). Each of the zones 406 comprise a plurality of physical or erase blocks (now shown) of a media unit or NVM 404, and each of the erase blocks are associated a plurality of logical blocks (not shown). When the controller 408 receives a command, such as from a host device (not shown) or the submission queue of a host device, the controller 408 can read data from and write data to the plurality of logical blocks associated with the plurality of erase blocks of the ZNS 402. Each of the logical blocks is associated with a unique LBA or sector. The read/write requests targeted towards the ZNS can target any Logical zone of the physical zone, including a point before or after the current location (indicated here by the write pointer position, which as seen in Fig. 4A can be reset or advanced and can be similarly applied to read commands as seen above)).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Karr, Sokolov and Viraraghavan with those of Bennett. Bennett teaches the concept of performing read/write operations to a physical zone that can target a specific location either beyond or before a current location. This can allow for additional flexibility when performing read/write commands, improving performance (i.e., see Bennett paragraphs [0056-0057], In both the open and closed zones, the write pointer is pointing to a place in the zone somewhere between the ZSLBA and the end of the last LBA of the zone (i.e., WP>0). Active zones may switch between the open and closed states per designation by the ZM, or if a write is scheduled to the zone. Additionally, the ZM may reset an active zone to clear or erase the data stored in the zone such that the zone switches back to an empty zone. Once an active zone is full, the zone switches to the full state. A full zone is one that is completely filled with data, and has no more available blocks to write data to (i.e., WP=zone capacity (ZCAP)). Read commands of data stored in full zones may still be executed. For write/read flexibility, also see Bennett paragraph [0063], However, a strict write ordering may cause the host writes to degenerate to single write I/O per zone 406, which limits the host performance and increases the host overhead. As such, the storage device 400 is configured to receive a manufacture or vendor specific command to turn off the sequentially check).
Claims 5 and 18 are the corresponding method and device claims to non-transitory computer readable medium claim 11. They are rejected with the same references and rationale.
Regarding claim 12, Karr in view of Sokolov in further view of Viraraghavan and further in view of Bennett teaches The non-transitory machine-readable medium as set forth in claim 8, wherein the executable code, when executed by the computing device, further causes the computing device to (see Karr as above) service a request to read additional data from the second physical zone, (Bennett paragraph [0040], Method 300 begins at operation 350, where the host device writes a command into a submission queue as an entry. The host device may write one or more commands into the submission queue at operation 350. The commands may be read commands or write commands. The host device may comprise one or more submission queues. The host device may write one or more commands to the submission queue in any order (i.e., a submission order), regardless of the sequential write order of the one or more commands (i.e., a sequential processing order). The physical zone may receive additional/subsequent read or write commands for data stored in the zone) when the request to read the additional data is referenced to a location before a current location of the zone random write area (see Bennett Fig. 4A, writer pointer position; Bennett paragraph [0047], In the storage device 400, the ZNS 402 is the quantity of NVM that can be formatted into logical blocks such that the capacity is divided into a plurality of zones 406a-406n (collectively referred to as zones 406). Each of the zones 406 comprise a plurality of physical or erase blocks (now shown) of a media unit or NVM 404, and each of the erase blocks are associated a plurality of logical blocks (not shown). When the controller 408 receives a command, such as from a host device (not shown) or the submission queue of a host device, the controller 408 can read data from and write data to the plurality of logical blocks associated with the plurality of erase blocks of the ZNS 402. Each of the logical blocks is associated with a unique LBA or sector. The read/write requests targeted towards the ZNS can target any Logical zone of the physical zone, including a point before or after the current location (indicated here by the write pointer position, which as seen in Fig. 4A can be reset or advanced and can be similarly applied to read commands as seen above)).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Karr, Sokolov and Viraraghavan with those of Bennett. Bennett teaches the concept of performing read/write operations to a physical zone that can target a specific location either beyond or before a current location. This can allow for additional flexibility when performing read/write commands, improving performance (i.e., see Bennett paragraphs [0056-0057], In both the open and closed zones, the write pointer is pointing to a place in the zone somewhere between the ZSLBA and the end of the last LBA of the zone (i.e., WP>0). Active zones may switch between the open and closed states per designation by the ZM, or if a write is scheduled to the zone. Additionally, the ZM may reset an active zone to clear or erase the data stored in the zone such that the zone switches back to an empty zone. Once an active zone is full, the zone switches to the full state. A full zone is one that is completely filled with data, and has no more available blocks to write data to (i.e., WP=zone capacity (ZCAP)). Read commands of data stored in full zones may still be executed. For write/read flexibility, also see Bennett paragraph [0063], However, a strict write ordering may cause the host writes to degenerate to single write I/O per zone 406, which limits the host performance and increases the host overhead. As such, the storage device 400 is configured to receive a manufacture or vendor specific command to turn off the sequentially check).
Claims 6 and 19 are the corresponding method and device claims to non-transitory computer readable medium claim 12. They are rejected with the same references and rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Bazarsky et al. (US Publication No. 2021/0303188 – “Bazarsky”) teaches the concept of a zoned namespace containing a plurality of physical zones. Specifically, Bazarsky discloses information regarding zone states of physical zones, and describes in detail the concept of opened/closed zones, which can use logical address information/data to indicate a zone has reached an “end” point for writing data, as well as the concept of emptying or clearing a zone by deleting the data for reuse (i.e., see Bazarsky paragraph [0047], Since resetting a zone clears or schedules an erasure of all data stored in the zone, the need for garbage collection of individual erase blocks is eliminated, improving the overall garbage collection process of the data storage device 106. The data storage device 106 may mark one or more erase blocks for erasure. When a new zone is going to be formed and the data storage device 106 anticipates a ZM open, the one or more erase blocks marked for erasure may then be erased. The data storage device 106 may further decide and create the physical backing of the zone upon erase of the erase blocks. Thus, once the new zone is opened and erase blocks are being selected to form the zone, the erase blocks will have been erased. Moreover, each time a zone is reset, a new order for the LBAs and the write pointer for the zone may be selected, enabling the zone to be tolerant to receive commands out of sequential order. The write pointer may optionally be turned off such that a command may be written to whatever starting LBA is indicated for the command).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JONAH C KRIEGER whose telephone number is (571)272-3627. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8 AM - 5 PM.
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/J.C.K./Examiner, Art Unit 2133
/ROCIO DEL MAR PEREZ-VELEZ/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2133
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