Patent ID: 6772286
Filing Date: 2004-08-03
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A method for regenerating data stored in a disk array system comprising a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) structure disk array comprising a plurality of disk drives having disk areas managed in units of one stripe, said disk array system being used by a host computer having a file system that manages the disk areas of the disk array in units of one logical block, said method comprising:acquiring a disk resource management information list from the host computer, the disk resource management information list indicating one of: (i) all logical blocks used by the file system; and (ii) all stripes including the logical blocks; generating a disk resource management table from the disk resource management information list, the disk resource management table representing, for each of the stripes of the disk areas of the disk array, whether each stripe includes a logical block that is used by the file system; specifying a stripe to which a data write destination belongs, when a data write request designating the data write destination is received from the host computer; determining whether the specified stripe is a first stripe or a second stripe, based on the disk resource management table, the first stripe being a stripe that includes a logical block used by the file system, and the second stripe being a stripe that does not include a logical block used by the file system; updating the disk resource management table if the specified stripe is the second stripe, in such a manner that the updated disk resource management table shows that the specified stripe is the first stripe; determining whether each of the stripes included in the disk areas of the disk array is the first stripe or the second stripe in response to a failure of one of the disk drives, based on the disk resource management table; and regenerating data by use of the RAID structure disk array with respect only to a stripe that has been determined as being the first stripe.