HP Assigned Four Patents

Efficient failure recovery in distributed storage system
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP, Houston, TX, has been assigned a patent (8,458,513) developed by five co-inventors for an "efficient failure recovery in a distributed storage system."

The co-inventors are John J. Wylie, San Francisco, CA, Joseph A. Tucek, A. Anderson, Palo Alto, CA, Xiaozhou Li, Cupertino, CA, and Mustafa Uysal, Fremont, CA

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method is provided for efficiently recovering information in a distributed storage system where a list of values that should be stored on a storage device is maintained. A first convergence round is scheduled to be performed on the list of values to bring each value to an At Maximum Redundancy (AMR) state. A second convergence round is scheduled to be performed on the list by selecting a wait time interval from a predefined range of wait time intervals between starts of convergence rounds."

The patent application was filed on July 30, 2010 (12/847,203).

Computer with multiple HDDs
Hewlett-Packard Development, Houston, TX, has been assigned a patent (8,456,827) developed by Mark S. Tracy, Tomball, TX, and Paul J. Doczy, Cypress, TX, for a "computer with multiple HDDs."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "One exemplary embodiment is a computer having a base and first and second HDD drives enclosed in the base. The second HDD drive is stacked on the first HDD drive and is removable from the base."

The patent application was filed on Nov. 14, 2007

Adjustment of tape reel height
Hewlett-Packard Development, Houston, TX has been assigned a patent (8,488,266) developed by Jeffrey S. McAllister, Boise, ID, and Robert Nemeth, Sollenau, Austria, for an "adjustment of tape reel height."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "One embodiment is tape drive that includes a take-tip reel onto which tape is wound. A height adjustment assembly adjusts a height of the take-up reel while the tape is being unwound from the take-up reel."

The patent application was filed on Oct. 29, 2008 (12/260,590).

Managing wear on independent storage devices
Hewlett-Packard Development, Houston, TX, has been assigned a patent (8,499,116) developed by David Andrew Roberts, Ann Arbor, MI, Jichuan Chang, Sunnyvale, CA, and Parthasarathy Ranganathan, San Jose, CA, for "managing wear on independent storage devices."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "In a method of managing wear on a plurality of independent storage devices having respective sets of memory cells, access characteristics of the memory cells in the plurality of independent storage devices are monitored. In addition, an instruction to access data on at least one of the memory cells is received and an independent storage device of the plurality of independent storage devices is selected to access data on at least one of the memory cells of the selected independent storage device based upon one or more predetermined selection policies and the monitored access characteristics of the memory cells in the plurality of independent storage devices. Moreover, the selected independent storage device is assigned to access data on at least one of the memory cells of the selected independent storage device according to the received instruction."

The patent application was filed on June 11, 2010 (12/813,772).