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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1-4, 6-7, 9, 11-15, 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goldberg et al (U.S. 2014/0244927), and in view of Chatterjee et al (U.S. 10,467,075).
Regarding claim 1:
A method for storing data, comprising:
determining, for each subdivide of a set of subdevices of a storage enclosure device, one or more operational measures of the subdevice; determining, based at least on the one or more operational measures for the subdevices and one or more environmental characteristics associated with the subdevices, a set of striping groups that optimizes an operational measure of the set of subdevices of the storage enclosure device, each striping group including a respective subset of the set of subdevices; Goldberg, Fig. 1, multiple disk drives 140, cooling module 150. Fig. 3, First to fifth disk drive enclosures such as disk drawers 180(1)-180(5) include first to fifth sets of disk drives 141(1)-141(5) respectively and first to fifth electronic boards 120(1)-120(5) that are coupled to the disk drives of each set. Each disk drawer (each set) is cooled by its own cooling outlet--so that first to fifth drawers 180(1)-180(5) are cooled respectively by first to fifth cooling outlets 160(1)-160(5) (¶0016). A temperature sensor 191 can be allocated per each disk drive, or per multiple disk drives (¶0102). Each disk drive group corresponds to at least one redundancy array of independent disks (RAID) group of data, in response to locations of the disk drives within disk drive enclosures, and expected or actual temperatures of the disk drives. The RAID group may be formed from multiple stripes, each stripe may include data units and parity units that are dependently related by parity computational relations. Each stripe may be written to disk drives of a disk drive group (¶0012, ¶0035). The disk drives may be arranged in multiple sets that differ from each other by location. The method may include allocating, by the management module, the disk drives to the disk drive groups so that each disk drive group may include disk drives of different sets. The sets may differ from disk drive groups (¶0044). The first disk drive group may be of a higher RAID level than the second disk drive group (for example, the first disk drive group complies with RAID 6, while the second RAID complies with RAID 5) and the assignment of a higher RAID level to the first disk drive group can at least partially compensate for differences in the temperatures between the disk drives of the first and second disk drive groups (¶108). Goldberg also discloses it is expected that warmer disk drives are less reliable than cooler disk drives. Accordingly, the allocation of disk drives to disk drive groups should take temperature related consideration into account. Disk drives that are expected to be warmer than others should be spread among disk drive groups (¶0092). The storage system may include temperature sensors arranged to measure temperatures of the disk drives, wherein the management module may be arranged to allocate the disk drives to the disk drive groups in a manner that at least partially compensates for differences in measured temperatures of the disk drives (¶0019). Thus, the location of the disk within the storage system (environmental characteristics associated with the drive) is also considered when forming the RAID groups.
and storing output data of a data striping operation to a particular subset of subdevices associated with a particular striping group of the set of striping groups. The disk drives may be arranged in multiple sets that differ from each other by location. The method may include allocating, by the management module, the disk drives to the disk drive groups so that each disk drive group may include disk drives of different sets. The sets may differ from disk drive groups (¶0044). The first disk drive group may be of a higher RAID level than the second disk drive group (for example, the first disk drive group complies with RAID 6, while the second RAID complies with RAID 5) and the assignment of a higher RAID level to the first disk drive group can at least partially compensate for differences in the temperatures between the disk drives of the first and second disk drive groups (¶108). Fig. 5, management module of the storage system allocates disk drives of the multiple disk drives to disk drive groups, each disk drive group corresponds to at least one redundancy array of independent disks (RAID) group, in response to at least one out of (a) locations of the disk drives within disk drive enclosures; and (b) expected or actual temperatures of the disk drives (¶0168-0169). Fig. 6, Stage 310 is followed by stage 320 of receiving, by the storage system, one or more write requests related to one or more data units to be written to the storage system. Stage 330 may be followed by stage 340 of writing the at least portion of the RAID group to the selected disk drive group.
Goldberg discloses the management module may be arranged to allocate the disk drives to disk drive groups in response to the expected or actual temperatures of the disk drives (¶0014). However, Goldberg does not teach the storage enclosure device comprises a plurality of subdevices or hard drives. In an analogous art of storage management, Chatterjee discloses a RAID system to store data, and a method for predicting reliability or risk of disk failure in the system (abstract, 2:1-25). Fig. 1 shows a storage node, e.g. node 2A , node 2E may be housed in an enclosure unit storing up to fifteen hard disk drives (4:50-65). Chatterjee also discloses that ambient and/or environmental conditions, such as enclosure temperature, vibrations in the enclosure, can be analyzed to provide an indication of disk health (7:50-65). Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing data of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to incorporate the teaching/disclosure of Chatterjee into Goldberg to obtain the claimed limitations above. The motivation for doing so is to apply a known technique into the apparatus/system, ready for improvement, of Goldberg to yield predictable results.
Claim 20 recites processor-readable storage media comprises instructions executing the process similarly to claim 1, and is rejected under same rationale cited in claim 1.
Regarding claim 2:
The method of claim 1, wherein the operational measures include one or more of performance measures or reliability measures. Goldberg, ¶0092, it is expected that warmer disk drives are less reliable than cooler disk drives. Accordingly, the allocation of disk drives to disk drive groups should take temperature related consideration into account. Disk drives that are expected to be warmer than others should be spread among disk drive groups. Chatterjee discloses collecting performance of each disk in a group of disks to predict disk failure, the performance includes disk’s operation, health, behavior, environment, or any other information (9:1-15).
Regarding claim 3:
The method of claim 2, wherein the reliability measures include at least one of an average fail rate ("AFR"), a durability, and a usable capacity. Chatterjee discloses collecting performance of each disk in a group of disks to predict disk failure, the performance includes disk’s operation, health, behavior, environment, or any other information (9:1-15).
Regarding claim 4:
The method of claim 1, wherein the data striping operation comprises a redundant array of independent disks ("RAID") striping operation, wherein the storage enclosure device comprises a hard disk drive ("HDD") chassis, and wherein the subdevices comprise HDDs. The sets may differ from disk drive groups (¶0044). The first disk drive group may be of a higher RAID level than the second disk drive group (for example, the first disk drive group complies with RAID 6, while the second RAID complies with RAID 5) and the assignment of a higher RAID level to the first disk drive group can at least partially compensate for differences in the temperatures between the disk drives of the first and second disk drive groups (¶108).
Regarding claim 6:
The method of claim 1, wherein the subdevices are substantially equally divided among the set of striping groups. Fig. 5, disk drive group 149(2) includes disk drives 140(12,1,1), 140(11,2,1), 140(10,3,1), 140(9,4,1) and 140(8,5,1). Address ranges 501-505 of disk drives 140(12,1,1), 140(11,2,1), 140(10,3,1), 140(9,4,1) and 140(8,5,1) form the group of addresses that are allocated for storing stripe 510 of RAID group 500. Goldberg further discloses the RAID group allocation can be same or differ from the number of disk drives of the storage system (¶0199, ¶0202).
Regarding claim 7:
The method of claim 1, wherein determining the one or more operational measures of the subdevice further comprises receiving, from one or more of the subdevices, the one or more operational measures. Chatterjee discloses collecting performance of each disk in a group of disks to predict disk failure, the performance includes disk’s operation, health, behavior, environment, or any other information (9:1-15).
Regarding claim 9:
The method of claim 1, further comprising determining the one or more operational measures based at least in part on descriptive data including one or more of unit temperature, servo-related metrics, read-related error rates, durability metrics, performance metrics, a fail rate, a predictive failure rate, or other reliability measure. Chatterjee discloses collecting performance of each disk in a group of disks to predict disk failure, the performance includes disk’s operation, health, behavior, environment, or any other information (9:1-15).
Regarding claim 11:
The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more environmental characteristics comprise temperatures or acoustic vibration characteristics of the subdevices. Chatterjee further discloses environmental statistics of the enclosure that hoses the disks, such as temperature, vibrations, can be collected and factored into the disk failure analysis (7:50-65, and 8:1-20). Thus, one skilled artisan would consider environmental factors, such as temperature or vibration of the enclosure, when assigning disks into RAID group.
Regarding claim 12:
A system for storing data, comprising: [a storage enclosure device comprising a set of subdevices;]
and one or more hardware processors communicatively coupled to the subdevices and configured to perform operations comprising: determining, for each subdevice of the set of subdevices, one or more operational measures of the subdevice; determining, based at least on the one or more operational measures for the subdevices and one or more environmental characteristics associated with the subdevices, a set of striping groups that optimizes an operational measure of the set of subdevices of the storage enclosure device, each striping group including a respective subset of the set of subdevices; Goldberg, Fig. 1, multiple disk drives 140, cooling module 150. Fig. 3, First to fifth disk drive enclosures such as disk drawers 180(1)-180(5) include first to fifth sets of disk drives 141(1)-141(5) respectively and first to fifth electronic boards 120(1)-120(5) that are coupled to the disk drives of each set. Each disk drawer (each set) is cooled by its own cooling outlet--so that first to fifth drawers 180(1)-180(5) are cooled respectively by first to fifth cooling outlets 160(1)-160(5) (¶0016). A temperature sensor 191 can be allocated per each disk drive, or per multiple disk drives (¶0102). Each disk drive group corresponds to at least one redundancy array of independent disks (RAID) group of data, in response to locations of the disk drives within disk drive enclosures, and expected or actual temperatures of the disk drives. The RAID group may be formed from multiple stripes, each stripe may include data units and parity units that are dependently related by parity computational relations. Each stripe may be written to disk drives of a disk drive group (¶0012, ¶0035). The disk drives may be arranged in multiple sets that differ from each other by location. The method may include allocating, by the management module, the disk drives to the disk drive groups so that each disk drive group may include disk drives of different sets. The sets may differ from disk drive groups (¶0044). The first disk drive group may be of a higher RAID level than the second disk drive group (for example, the first disk drive group complies with RAID 6, while the second RAID complies with RAID 5) and the assignment of a higher RAID level to the first disk drive group can at least partially compensate for differences in the temperatures between the disk drives of the first and second disk drive groups (¶108). Goldberg also discloses it is expected that warmer disk drives are less reliable than cooler disk drives. Accordingly, the allocation of disk drives to disk drive groups should take temperature related consideration into account. Disk drives that are expected to be warmer than others should be spread among disk drive groups (¶0092). The storage system may include temperature sensors arranged to measure temperatures of the disk drives, wherein the management module may be arranged to allocate the disk drives to the disk drive groups in a manner that at least partially compensates for differences in measured temperatures of the disk drives (¶0019). Thus, the location of the disk within the storage system (environmental characteristics associated with the drive) is also considered when forming the RAID groups.
and storing output data of a data striping operation to a particular subset of subdevices associated with a particular striping group of the set of striping groups. The disk drives may be arranged in multiple sets that differ from each other by location. The method may include allocating, by the management module, the disk drives to the disk drive groups so that each disk drive group may include disk drives of different sets. The sets may differ from disk drive groups (¶0044). The first disk drive group may be of a higher RAID level than the second disk drive group (for example, the first disk drive group complies with RAID 6, while the second RAID complies with RAID 5) and the assignment of a higher RAID level to the first disk drive group can at least partially compensate for differences in the temperatures between the disk drives of the first and second disk drive groups (¶108). Fig. 5, management module of the storage system allocates disk drives of the multiple disk drives to disk drive groups, each disk drive group corresponds to at least one redundancy array of independent disks (RAID) group, in response to at least one out of (a) locations of the disk drives within disk drive enclosures; and (b) expected or actual temperatures of the disk drives (¶0168-0169). Fig. 6, Stage 310 is followed by stage 320 of receiving, by the storage system, one or more write requests related to one or more data units to be written to the storage system. Stage 330 may be followed by stage 340 of writing the at least portion of the RAID group to the selected disk drive group.
Goldberg discloses the management module may be arranged to allocate the disk drives to disk drive groups in response to the expected or actual temperatures of the disk drives (¶0014). However, Goldberg does not teach the storage enclosure device comprises a plurality of subdevices or hard drives. In an analogous art of storage management, Chatterjee discloses a RAID system to store data, and a method for predicting reliability or risk of disk failure in the system (abstract, 2:1-25). Fig. 1 shows a storage node, e.g. node 2A , node 2E may be housed in an enclosure unit storing up to fifteen hard disk drives (4:50-65). Chatterjee also discloses that ambient and/or environmental conditions, such as enclosure temperature, vibrations in the enclosure, can be analyzed to provide an indication of disk health (7:50-65). Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing data of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to incorporate the teaching/disclosure of Chatterjee into Goldberg to obtain the claimed limitations above. The motivation for doing so is to apply a known technique into the apparatus/system, ready for improvement, of Goldberg to yield predictable results.
Regarding claim 13:
The system of claim 12, wherein the operational measures include one or more of performance measures or reliability measures. Goldberg, ¶0092, it is expected that warmer disk drives are less reliable than cooler disk drives. Accordingly, the allocation of disk drives to disk drive groups should take temperature related consideration into account. Disk drives that are expected to be warmer than others should be spread among disk drive groups. Chatterjee discloses collecting performance of each disk in a group of disks to predict disk failure, the performance includes disk’s operation, health, behavior, environment, or any other information (9:1-15).
Regarding claim 14:
The system of claim 13, wherein the reliability measures include at least one of an average fail rate ("AFR"), a durability, and a usable capacity. Chatterjee discloses collecting performance of each disk in a group of disks to predict disk failure, the performance includes disk’s operation, health, behavior, environment, or any other information (9:1-15).
Regarding claim 15:
The system of claim 12, wherein the data striping operation comprises a redundant array of independent disks ("RAID") striping operation, wherein the storage enclosure device comprises a hard disk drive ("HDD") chassis, and wherein the subdevices comprise HDDs. The sets may differ from disk drive groups (¶0044). The first disk drive group may be of a higher RAID level than the second disk drive group (for example, the first disk drive group complies with RAID 6, while the second RAID complies with RAID 5) and the assignment of a higher RAID level to the first disk drive group can at least partially compensate for differences in the temperatures between the disk drives of the first and second disk drive groups (¶108).
Regarding claim 17:
The system of claim 12, herein the environmental characteristics comprise temperature or acoustic vibration of the subdevices. Chatterjee further discloses environmental statistics of the enclosure that hoses the disks, such as temperature, vibrations, can be collected and factored into the disk failure analysis (7:50-65, and 8:1-20). Thus, one skilled artisan would consider environmental factors, such as temperature or vibration of the enclosure, when assigning disks into RAID group.
Regarding claim 18:
The system of claim 12, wherein the subdevices are substantially equally divided among the set of striping groups. Fig. 5, disk drive group 149(2) includes disk drives 140(12,1,1), 140(11,2,1), 140(10,3,1), 140(9,4,1) and 140(8,5,1). Address ranges 501-505 of disk drives 140(12,1,1), 140(11,2,1), 140(10,3,1), 140(9,4,1) and 140(8,5,1) form the group of addresses that are allocated for storing stripe 510 of RAID group 500. Goldberg further discloses the RAID group allocation can be same or differ from the number of disk drives of the storage system (¶0199, ¶0202).
Regarding claim 19:
The system of claim 12, wherein determining the one or more operational measures of the subdevice comprises receiving, from one or more of the subdevices, the one or more operational measures. Chatterjee discloses collecting performance of each disk in a group of disks to predict disk failure, the performance includes disk’s operation, health, behavior, environment, or any other information (9:1-15).
Claims 5, 8, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goldberg et al (U.S. 2014/0244927), and in view of Chatterjee et al (U.S. 10,467,075), and further in view of Huh et al (U.S. 2019/0042125).
Regarding claim 5:
The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more environmental characteristics comprise a proximity of the subdevices to one or more fans. Goldberg, the storage system may include multiple cooling outlets that may be arranged to direct cooling gas flows towards the disk drives; wherein the management module may be arranged to allocate the disk drives to disk drive groups based upon distances of the disk drives from the cooling outlets (¶0020). However, the combination of Goldberg does not teaches using fan as cooling device. In an analogous art of storage management and failure prevention, Huh (abstract), discloses a multi-chassis storage rack. Each chassis 108, Fig. 1, includes multiple storage nodes and one or more cooling fans 126 (¶0016). Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing data of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to incorporate the fan of Huh into Goldberg to obtain the claimed limitations above. The motivation for doing so is to apply a known technique into the apparatus/system, ready for improvement of Goldberg, to yield predictable result.
Regarding claim 8:
The method of claim 1, further comprising determining the one or more operational measures based at least in part on one or more of a proximity of the subdevice to one or more fan devices of the storage enclosure device. The combination of Goldberg does not teach the claimed limitation above. However, In an analogous art of storage management and failure prevention, Huh (abstract), discloses a multi-chassis storage rack. Each chassis 108, Fig. 1 storage 100, includes multiple storage nodes and one or more cooling fans 126 (¶0016). Huh further discloses storage controller within storage 100 collect data that facilitates early identification of potential environmental disturbances, as well as early identification and implementation of appropriate correction actions. The storage controller may collect data from a physical position map to identify storage nodes that are situated in physical proximity of a fan, in response to increasing in fan RPM speed, or failure, in order to perform corrective actions (¶0024-¶0025). Chatterjee, in combination with Goldberg, also discloses about ambient or environmental conditions effecting disk failure analysis (7:50-65). Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing data of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to incorporate the disclosure of Huh into the combination of Goldberg, to obtain the claimed limitations above. The motivation for doing so is to apply a known technique into the apparatus/system, ready for improvement of Goldberg, to yield predictable result.
Regarding claim 16:
The system of claim 12, wherein the one or more environmental characteristics comprise a proximity of the subdevices to one or more fans. Goldberg, the storage system may include multiple cooling outlets that may be arranged to direct cooling gas flows towards the disk drives; wherein the management module may be arranged to allocate the disk drives to disk drive groups based upon distances of the disk drives from the cooling outlets (¶0020). However, the combination of Goldberg does not teaches using fan as cooling device. In an analogous art of storage management and failure prevention, Huh (abstract), discloses a multi-chassis storage rack. Each chassis 108, Fig. 1, includes multiple storage nodes and one or more cooling fans 126 (¶0016). Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing data of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to incorporate the fan of Huh into Goldberg to obtain the claimed limitations above. The motivation for doing so is to apply a known technique into the apparatus/system, ready for improvement of Goldberg, to yield predictable result.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goldberg et al (U.S. 2014/0244927), and in view of Chatterjee et al (U.S. 10,467,075), and further in view of Olderdissen et al (U.S. 10,467,115).
Regarding claim 10:
The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving, from one or more of the subdevices, vibration data comprising a level of acoustic vibration of the subdevice, Chatterjee, in combination with Goldberg, also discloses about ambient or environmental conditions effecting disk failure analysis (7:50-65). The vibration data can be collected, and then compared with an alarm trip threshold (Chatterjee, 11:35-55).
However, the combination of Goldberg does not teach wherein the one or more operational measures comprise at least an average fail rate ("AFR"). In an analogous art of storage management, Olderdissen discloses a technique to predict, and mitigate the increased probability of data loss, disk failure in a storage cluster (4:15-25); a set of data loss parameters, such as storage device attribute, physical location, heat map location, make and model, an average disk failure rate, may be collect from system data to facilitate formation of disk groups (5:60-65, 6:1-10, and 7:15-30). One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing data of the claimed invention, would have been motivated to incorporate the teaching of Olderdissen into the combination of Goldberg, to obtain the claimed limitations above. The motivation for doing so is to apply a known technique to the system, ready for improvement, of Goldberg, to yield predictable result.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Blount et al (U.S. 2017/0315753) discloses a technique to predict disk drive wear-out based on workload and risk tolerance.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KHOA D DOAN whose telephone number is (571)272-5950. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 1000-1700.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, ROCIO DEL MAR PEREZ-VELEZ can be reached at 571-270-5935. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/KHOA D DOAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2133
Prosecution Insights