Compellent (Dell) Assigned Two Patents

Virtual disk drive
Compellent Technologies, Eden Prairie, MN, a Dell company, has been assigned a patent (9,021,295) developed by Soran, Philip E., Edina, MN, Guider, John P., North Oaks, MN, Aszmann, Lawrence E., Prior Lake, MN, and Klemm, Michael J., Minnetonka, MN, for a “virtual disk drive system and method.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A disk drive system and method capable of dynamically allocating data is provided. The disk drive system may include a RAID subsystem having a pool of storage, for example a page pool of storage that maintains a free list of RAIDs, or a matrix of disk storage blocks that maintain a null list of RAIDs, and a disk manager having at least one disk storage system controller. The RAID subsystem and disk manager dynamically allocate data across the pool of storage and a plurality of disk drives based on RAID-to-disk mapping. The RAID subsystem and disk manager determine whether additional disk drives are required, and a notification is sent if the additional disk drives are required. Dynamic data allocation and data progression allow a user to acquire a disk drive later in time when it is needed. Dynamic data allocation also allows efficient data storage of snapshots/point-in-time copies of virtual volume pool of storage, instant data replay and data instant fusion for data backup, recovery etc., remote data storage, and data progression, etc.“

The patent application was filed on October 7, 2013 (14/047,152).

Unbalanced RAID management
Compellent Technologies, Eden Prairie, MN, a Dell company, has been assigned a patent (9,015,411) developed by Klemm, Michael J., Minnetonka, MN, and Pittelko, Michael H., Chaska, MN, for a “system and method for unbalanced raid management.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: ”A method for dynamically balancing the allocation of data among a plurality of physical data storage devices having a plurality of RAID devices defined thereon, wherein at least one of the plurality of RAID devices is comprised of at least one of a different type of physical storage device or a different number of physical data storage devices than at least one other of the plurality of RAID devices, includes determining a usage factor unique to each RAID device and balancing data I/O based at least in part on the usage factor.“

The patent application was filed on December 2, 2011 (13/310,316).