Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory – Storage accessing and control – Specific memory composition
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-19
2003-04-15
Bragdon, Reginald G. (Department: 2188)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory
Storage accessing and control
Specific memory composition
C711S162000, C711S165000, C714S006130
Reexamination Certificate
active
06549980
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
This disclosure generally relates to computer system manufacturing, and more particularly, to an improved manufacturing process for software RAID
1
disk sets.
In the computer arts, RAID is an acronym for “Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks.” Disk may be organized into several different types of arrays. One type is called “RAID
1
.” RAID
1
provides data redundancy by recording the same data on two or more disks. This process of multiple recording is sometimes called “mirroring” disks.
RAID
1
disk arrays may be implemented in hardware controllers or in the software of a computer's operating system.
RAID controllers, both hardware and software, organize the several physical disks into logical volumes which can be written and read by the application software. To describe this mapping of physical and logical disk drives, RAID controllers store some “metadata” on the disks describing the structure of each drive and its placement in the RAID array.
Hardware RAID controllers hide metadata on each disk drive of a RAID array, and on other non-volatile storage, so that the logical content of a logical disk does not contain the metadata. In this case, the logical content of each member of a RAID
1
array is identical to the logical content of any other member. The metadata does not need to be saved or restored within the logical disk data during the manufacturing process.
By contrast, RAID
1
control implemented in the operating system software stores the metadata inside the readable data on the disk. As a result, the logical contents of the disks in a software-managed RAID
1
array are not identical.
In one manufacturing process, all disks in a software RAID
1
mirror set are written with unique images. However, such a method of writing all disks in the mirror set with unique images increases the time to manufacture the computer system overall. Moreover, a typical solution in computer manufacturing is to write a separate image to each disk of a disk set. Because unique images are written in series, this takes twice as long for two disks as writing the single image into a hardware RAID controller.
With respect to software RAID
1
, software RAID
1
is a feature in some computer server operating systems. In connection with the manufacture of computer servers having operating systems that employ software RAID, it is desirable to provide an improved ability to support configurations of soft-mirrored disks.
SUMMARY
A method of manufacturing a computer includes creating a reference two-disk software RAID pair, the software RAID pair having desired partitions mirrored by an operating system. The method also includes extracting a master image from one disk of the reference disk pair, performing a difference comparison of partitions of a target disk of the reference disk pair against the master image and obtaining a collection of differences. The method further includes writing the master image to each disk of a disk set in the computer being manufactured and applying the collection of differences to a target disk of the disk set.
A technical advantage of the method of the present disclosure is an improved manufacturing of a custom configured computer having a software RAID mirror disk set.
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Bragdon Reginald G.
Dell Pruducts L.P.
Haynes and Boone LLP
Song Jasmine
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