HGST Assigned Patent

HGST Netherlands B.V., Amsterdam, Netherlands, has been assigned a patent (8,909,859), developed by Bandic Zvonimir Z., Guyot Cyril, San Jose, CA, Harayama Tomohiro, Sunnyvale, CA, Kamei Hitoshi, Nakamura Takaki, Kanagawa, Japan and Tsai Timothy, Alviso, CA, for a “implementing large block random write hot spare SSD for SMR RAID.”

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “A method and a storage system are provided for implementing a sustained large block random write performance mechanism for shingled magnetic recording (SMR) drives in RAID. An SSD is provided with the SMR drives in the RAID. The SSD is used in a hot spare mode, which is activated when a large block random-write event is identified for a SMR drive in the RAID. In the hot spare mode, the SSD temporarily receives new incoming writes for the identified SMR drive. Then the identified SMR drive is updated from the SSD to restore the state of the identified SMR drive, and operations continue with normal writing only using the SMR drives in the RAID.“

The patent application was filed on March 1, 2012 (13/410,089).