Title :
Architecture of a fault-tolerant RAID-5+I/O subsystem
Author_Institution :
MTI RAID Technol. Center, Sunnyvale, CA, USA
Abstract :
An approach to the design of a fault-tolerant input/output subsystem is emphasized that focuses on basic architectural and systematic requirements. The MTI FailSafe product is a fault-tolerant RAID-5+system. FailSafe supports a high mean time to loss of data availability (MTDA) through fully redundant hardware, a verified data path, and a design philosophy that, while not attempting to be verifiable, accepts and prepares for errors with an architected recovery policy. RAID provides the no-single-point-of-failure property for the media and, with a hot spare, can provide a fairly seamless repair cycle for failed drives and drive channels. The author discusses what he believes a fault-tolerant RAID system architecture beyond RAID should consist of. The FailSafe system architecture is presented. The key implementation and design tradeoffs are considered. Some of the performance issues and operational requirements for RAID systems are discussed.
Keywords :
computer architecture; fault tolerant computing; redundancy; MTI FailSafe product; architected recovery policy; design tradeoffs; drive channels; failed drives; fault-tolerant RAID-5+I/O subsystem; fully redundant hardware; hot spare; implementation tradeoffs; input/output subsystem; mean time to loss of data availability; no-single-point-of-failure property; operational requirements; performance; seamless repair cycle; system architecture; verified data path; Availability; Computer architecture; Fault tolerance; Fault tolerant systems; Hardware; Manufacturing; Protection; Redundancy; System testing; Telephony;
Conference_Titel :
System Sciences, 1993, Proceeding of the Twenty-Sixth Hawaii International Conference on
Print_ISBN :
0-8186-3230-5
DOI :
10.1109/HICSS.1993.270757
