Patent ID: 7805412

Claim:
In a storage system that includes a plurality of storage devices for storing file components and a plurality of metadata managers, a parallel method for reconstructing file components following the failure of one or more of the storage devices, comprising: identifying a storage device having one or more unrecoverable read errors requiring reconstruction; identifying a metadata manager which serves as a scheduler; identifying a plurality of metadata managers which serve as a plurality of workers; constructing, with a scheduler service running on the metadata manager identified as the scheduler, a list of file components affected by the one or more unrecoverable read errors requiring reconstruction; assembling, with the scheduler service running on the metadata manager identified as the scheduler, a work list corresponding to each of a plurality of the workers, wherein the work list for each worker includes a subset of file components from the list requiring reconstruction, and wherein the plurality of workers include metadata managers other than the scheduler; and instructing, with the scheduler service running on the metadata manager identified as the scheduler, each worker to reconstruct data contained in the subset of file components on the work list of said worker; and wherein, in response to said instructing, the plurality of workers operate in parallel to reconstruct the data contained in the file components requiring reconstruction.