Method and apparatus for allocating erasure coded data to disk storage

Allocation process that allows erasure coded data to be stored on any of a plurality of disk drives, in a pool of drives, so that the allocation is not tied to a fixed group of drives. Still further, the encoded data can be generated by any of multiple different erasure coding algorithms, where agai...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors BAGBY, STEVEN, HEALEY, MICHAEL W, BEAVERSON, ARTHUR J, CORDELLA, DAVID
Format Patent
LanguageEnglish
Published 12.06.2014
Subjects
CALCULATING
COMPUTING
COUNTING
ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
PHYSICS
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Summary:Allocation process that allows erasure coded data to be stored on any of a plurality of disk drives, in a pool of drives, so that the allocation is not tied to a fixed group of drives. Still further, the encoded data can be generated by any of multiple different erasure coding algorithms, where again storage of the encoded data is not restricted to a single group of drives based on the erasure algorithm being utilized to encode the data. In another embodiment, the encoded data can be "stacked" (aligned) on select drives to reduce the number of head seeks required to access the data. As a result of these improvements, the system can dynamically determine which one of multiple erasure coding algorithms to utilize for a given incoming data block, without being tied to one particular algorithm and one particular group of storage devices as in the prior art.
Bibliography:Application Number: AU20120340677