JP2001522089A - Automatic backup based on disk drive status - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] Backup of a personal computer is automatically started in response to disk drive performance monitoring software that predicts an imminent failure or performance degradation and provides a message to a tape backup program. The tape backup program responds to information provided by the disk drive performance monitoring software based on user-defined performance conditions or other conditions indicating an imminent or possible failure, and provides a tape backup of the data on the disk drives. To start. The tape backup program augments the messages normally provided by self-monitoring software by indicating that the disk drive is being backed up at a particular time, and indicates the status of backup and completion.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001] The present invention relates generally to computer systems, and more particularly, to automatic backup of disk drive data based on disk drive status. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Hard disk drives are complex electromagnetic devices that can suffer performance degradation or failure due to a single event or a combination of multiple events. Some hard disk drive failures occur suddenly without any warning. These unpredictable failures can be caused by static electricity, handling damage, or heat-related solder problems. Other failures of hard disk drives are the result of a gradual degradation of the operating performance of the device. Hard disk drive failures cause loss of data and loss of time for users seeking to recover lost data.

One method for preventing data loss associated with hard disk drive failure is self-monitoring, analysis and reporting technology.
hnology) (SMART). Failures resulting from performance degradation may be M. A. R. T. Is the type of fault that is designed to be the object of the prediction. S. M. A. R. T. Supported disk drives are
Monitor various internal information of the disk drive to assess reliability and anticipate imminent device failure. For example, M. A. R. T. The corresponding disk drive may monitor the flying height of the head above the magnetic media. If the head begins to fly too high or too low, it is likely that the device has failed. Other disk drives can monitor various conditions such as soft error rates that occur sporadically but may not appear during continuous data reading. S. M. A. R. T. The monitoring technology used in compatible magnetic hard disk drives varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.

[0003] M. A. R. T. When the imminent failure of the corresponding disk drive is predicted, the S.D. M. A. R. T. A function provides information through an interface to this disk drive. This information can be presented to the user via the driver and the application supporting it.
This information reaches an application capable of displaying a warning message to the user. The user is responsible for responding to the alert message as needed. Thus, this device requires the user to back up important data and replace suspicious devices after an alert is given and before suffering data loss or unscheduled downtime.

[0004] However, problems arise when the user cannot respond by backing up data before a failure occurs. One such situation occurs with workstations connected over a network when the user does not have the authority or ability to back up data and replace disk drives. Hard disk drive failures result in loss of data, loss of time, and often financial loss. Yet another problem may occur when the computer is always on, for example, overnight, and the user is not normally monitoring the computer. Several times during normal working hours, the user may leave the running computer. There is a need to address disk drive issues when the user is unavailable. Further, there is a need to improve the reliability of the system when the user is not with the system. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In response to selected information provided by monitoring disk drive performance, backup of data on a personal computer is automatically initiated. In one embodiment, the performance monitoring function of the disk drive provides information regarding a potential imminent failure or performance degradation. This information is provided to an application such as a tape backup program. This tape backup program starts tape backup of data on the disk drive. Tape backup is initiated when this information indicates a pre-defined or user-defined performance state or other state that indicates an imminent or potential failure. The disk drive must have sufficient performance to allow for a successful backup before anticipated failure of the disk drive, and to ensure optimal data transmission rates during such backups. A pre-defined state is defined to ensure that it has.

[0005] In one embodiment, the tape backup program provides a self-monitoring function by indicating that the disk drive is being backed up at a particular point in time, and by further indicating the status of backup and completion. Increase the information provided. When the user is not at the computer system, the tape backup program will automatically initiate the backup by verifying that the appropriate storage medium, such as a tape, is in place in the tape device. . When there is no suitable storage medium in the tape device, the tape backup program instructs the user to insert a tape.

The tape backup program allows a user to continue working until a potentially failed disk drive can be repaired, and to copy any writable storage media, such as tapes, diskettes and ZIP drives. Use,
Data can be backed up in real time. In addition, the backup program allows the user to leave the computer system unattended with some assurance that potential disk drive failures will be detected and data will likely be backed up without user intervention. Enable.

In yet another embodiment, another disk drive or a writable CD-ROM
Other forms of non-volatile storage devices such as are used as backup devices.
In one variation, the disk drive is backed up via a network connection to a server or other device with appropriate storage capacity. DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, and other embodiments can be used without departing from the scope of the invention. It should be understood that configuration changes can be made. Therefore, the following detailed description should not be construed as limiting, the scope of the present invention being defined by the appended claims.

A block diagram of the computer system 100 of FIG. 1 is described with respect to the present invention. A software module embodying the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. 2, and flowcharts showing details of processes embodied by the software module and the computer system will be described with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4. In one embodiment, computer system 100 is a typical computer system and includes a processor 110 coupled to a storage device 112 and a system controller 114. This system controller is also coupled to the processor 110, and both the processor 110 and the system controller 114
2 can be accessed. System controller 114 is also coupled to host bus 116. A graphics controller 1 coupled to a host bus 116 is further coupled to a disk drive 118, a tape drive 120, a PCI device interface 122, and a display 126.
24 and a keyboard / mouse controller 1 coupled to the keyboard 130
28, and a plurality of peripheral devices. All of these elements work together in a known manner, and software resident in storage device 112, such as RAM, BIOS, DRAM, or other storage device, executes on processor 110. A system controller 114 provides an interface to the peripheral devices and allows data to be transferred between the peripheral device and the storage device 112 without having to first pass data through the processor 110.

Some of the programs executed by the processor 110 include an operating system, an application program, a peripheral device driver, and other modules or programs. In FIG. 2, a block diagram in which each block shows the program modules and devices enables a potential failure of the disk drive device 118 to be detected and the data on the disk drive 118 to be backed up on the tape drive 120. Show the blocks involved in doing For example, IBM Corporation, Western Digital, to name a few.
Many available disk drives currently available from disk drive suppliers, including Corporation, Seagate, and Quantum, have predictive failure analysis capabilities. One industry standard for predictive failure analysis is a self-monitoring analysis reporting technology (Self) as shown in block 210.
-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) (SMART)
is called.

Information about the operating characteristics of the disk drive 118 is provided to a register, which is polled by the BIOS / driver 212 and provided to the application agent 214. The application agent 214 provides a message to the user regarding the status of the disk drive 118 and, if it is determined that the failure of the disk drive is likely to occur within a set time, performs a tape backup of the data on the disk drive. Start. The application agent 214 first causes the tape drive 120 to
Is available, and if not, instructs the user to insert the appropriate media, such as tape. Next, the application agent 214 invokes the operating system service 22 to launch a backup program 222, which can be the same program commonly used to back up the disk drive 118.
Call 0. The backup program 222 initiates a backup and data from the disk drive is transferred to the tape as indicated by a bus 218, such as a PCI bus. The backup program 222 can be used to back up to any suitable storage device, whether local or remote via a network. Application agent 214 acts as a router between BIOS 212 and the operating system.

The analysis block 210 monitors a range of attributes and sends the attributes and threshold information to the application agent 214 via a register. Then, in normal operation, analysis block 210 determines whether an alert is allowed and sends the message to the system along with the attribute and threshold information. The implementation of attributes and threshold levels is different for each disk drive supplier and is based on a historical failure analysis of data collected from information stored in already failed disk drives. The uniqueness of attributes is important because the architecture of disk drives varies from model to model. Attributes and thresholds for detecting a fault in one model may not work for detecting a fault in another model.

[0012] Predictable failure is characterized by the degradation of attributes over time before the disk drive fails. This creates a situation where attribute monitoring is possible and allows for predictive failure analysis. Many mechanical failures are generally considered to be predictable, such that a reduced head flying height may indicate a potential head crash. Although some electronic failures will show degradation before failure, mechanical problems are generally gradual and predictable.

Although the attributes are specific to each disk drive, it is possible to identify various general characteristics, such as head flying height, heading, to name a few.
Data throughput performance, rotation start-up time, reallocated sector count, seek error rate, seek time performance, spin try recount
, Drive calibration retry count
unt). Other characteristics can also be used with various disk drives, depending on the design of the disk drive and historical failure information.

At the present time, S.T. M. A. R. T. There are two specifications. When SFF-8035 was released in the public domain, S.S.F. M. A. R. T. Appeared. The SCSI drive is ANSI-SCSI Informational Exception.
Control (IEC) incorporates another industry standard specification as defined in document X3T10 / 94-190.

S. Regarding attributes and thresholds M. A. R. T. System technology is ATA / IDE
And the SCSI environment, but the reporting of information is different. ATA /
In an IDE environment, the software on the host is M. A. R. T. Decrypt the alert information from the disk drive generated by the "report status" command. The application agent 214 periodically polls the disk drive to check the status of this command, and alerts the end user or system administrator if this status signals an impending failure. If the application agent 214 M. A. R. T. In addition to the "status report" command from analysis block 210, the reported attributes and alerts are evaluated.

Generally speaking, a SCSI disk drive with reliability prediction capability only reports a reliability status as either normal or failed. In the SCSI environment, the analysis block 21 which notifies the user and starts the tape backup
As represented by 0, a failure determination occurs in the disk drive. The SCSI specification defines a sense bit that can be flagged when a disk drive determines that a reliability problem exists.

S. M. A. R. T. Command from the ATA interface register. M. A. R. T. Via the BIOS capable of receiving data or the BIOS / driver 212 which is a driver, S.N. M. A. R. T. An API is provided to set the ATA registers in ATA / IDE disk drives that support. S. M. A. R. T. An application agent 214, such as a backup program, is provided on top of the BIOS or driver to allow the user to control the device and monitor the status of the device. Some subcommands and their individual codes are ENABLE / D
ISABLE ATTRIBUTE AUTOSAVE-code D2h, ENA
BLE S. M. A. R. T. OPERATIONS-Code D8h, ENA
BLE S. M. A. R. T. OPERATIONS-code D9h and RETURN S.D. M. A. R. T. Includes STATUS-code DAh.
RETURN S.R. M. A. R. T. The STATUS subcommand is used to read status information from one or more ATA registers.

FIG. 3 shows the steps performed to monitor the status of the disk drive 118 in detail. These steps are the device driver, BIOS,
Alternatively, it may be implemented as a whole in the form of an application program, or distributed between them. Most implementations provide status polling in the driver or BIOS, and other steps are implemented in the form of application programs written in a number of high-level languages, such as C ++. At 310, drive registers or bits are polled. The polling interval may be defined by the user or set in advance. If the progress of the failure is rapid, it should be understood that shorter times provide a more effective recovery opportunity, but there are some forms of failure that are currently unpredictable. Must. The time of this time interval must be selected to ensure that critical system resources are not consumed by the polling and further processing operations associated with each poll.

At 312, one or more register values are received that include information regarding the status of the disk drive and attributes, such as the above attributes, and a predefined value or a user is compared to the predefined values. . In one embodiment, for SCSI devices, only a single bit, the status of the disk drive, merely indicates a potential failure condition. If a potential fault condition is received or derived from the attribute at 320, a message indicating an impending fault condition is provided to the user or system administrator at 322. If no fault condition is detected, control returns to 310 polling.

After the detection of the potential fault condition, an attempt is made to initiate a tape backup at 324, in which, for the appropriate media, such as a tape cartridge,
The tape drive is checked. If no media is detected, at 328 the user is prompted to insert such media, and
At 0, a standby state is entered until the presence of such media is detected. 324
336, the normal tape backup operation is started at 336. Such operations are well known in the art, and in the past, these operations have been initiated by the user or have been performed periodically during normal operation. As shown at 338, prior to or during the tape backup operation, the status of the backup operation is presented to the user by the reporting function. At 344, upon completion of the tape backup, a display of completion is presented to the user, and the procedure ends at 346.

The user interacts with the application agent 214 by the functions shown in the flowchart of FIG. At block 410, an interface is provided to the user via a command, graphical user interface, menu driven interface, voice, or other configuration to enable or disable the automatic tape backup function. At 412, the user is allowed to edit the backup criteria via a similar interface. This confirms that the data throughput of the disk drive is sufficient to supply the data at a rate sufficient to keep the tape drive in streaming mode operation.
Allows the user to reserve. If the data transfer rate is too low, the tape unit can only write one block at a time, so if the second block is not immediately available, stop and rewind the tape after the first block. After that, the tape can be resynchronized to write the next block of data. While buffering techniques are useful to ensure that the tape drive operates in streaming mode, this technique may not be sufficient if the performance of the disk drive has been severely degraded.

The enable / disable interface and the reference editing interface may be combined in a single screen, and furthermore the controls commonly used in the operating environment or operating system of a personal computer It may be combined with general control of disk drive functions, such as control through a control panel such as a panel.

At 418, the previous backup information already stored is examined, and 422 is checked.
If the disk drive has been backed up recently, as determined by, the backup function is disabled for the selected time period. 4
At 30, after this time, which can be defined by the user but defaults to about 24 hours, the backup function is enabled. A user may set a value at 412 to indicate that the backup function must not be automatically enabled. At 422, if the disk drive has recently been backed up, control is returned at 432. Block 41
The functions provided by 8, 422, 430 may be performed periodically, again being user-definable at 412. Conclusion A system has been described that enables automatic backup of disk drive data upon detection of potential failures in the disk drive that may occur in the future. It is to be understood that the above description is intended to be illustrative and not limiting of the invention. Various other embodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. The present invention relates to M. A
. R. T. , But other predictive failure analysis functions may be used to implement the automatic backup function. Other types where such functions can store data and whose potential failure can be predicted, such as CD-ROM devices and other devices that may not yet be invented. Can be easily integrated into the device. Further, in the above embodiment, the tape drive is specified as the backup device. However, other devices such as a disk drive on the same computer system or another network-connected computer or another storage facility may be used. A device may be used. Many of the functions provided by the BIOS or applications can be provided by software, hardware or firmware as known to those skilled in the art, and the location of the device providing such functions is also known by design. It is a matter of choice. Further, the present invention can be combined with other computer systems, such as portable computers, servers, mid-sized computers, or other computers.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a computer system using the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a functional module used in an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the steps performed by the functional module of FIG. 2 to detect a potential failure condition and initiate a backup of data in a potentially failed device.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing steps performed to determine whether backup is necessary based on a previous backup history.

Claims (20)

[Claims] 1. A backup memory system, comprising: a polling device for polling a disk drive device for providing information on a status of the disk drive device; a comparator for comparing the information with a predetermined value; A backup initiator for starting backup of data stored on the drive device. 2. The memory system according to claim 1, further comprising a device register for providing said information. 3. The memory system according to claim 1, further comprising a tape drive coupled to said disk drive. 4. A message system for instructing a user of the memory system to provide an appropriate medium for the tape drive before starting backup of data stored on the disk drive. 4. The memory system of claim 3, further comprising: 5. A computer system, comprising: a disk drive having an integrated performance monitoring and status reporting function; a tape drive coupled to the disk drive; and a current status of the disk drive. A polling module that polls the disk drive to determine a tape that initiates backup of data on the disk drive to an appropriate medium in the tape drive based on the status of the disk drive. Computer system including a drive module. 6. A message system for instructing a user of the memory system to provide an appropriate medium for the tape drive before starting backup of data stored on the disk drive. The computer system of claim 5, further comprising: 7. The computer system of claim 5, wherein the disk drive includes a register, and the polling module polls the register to determine a current state of the disk drive. 8. The computer system according to claim 5, wherein said tape drive module includes a software application program. 9. The computer system of claim 5, further comprising an interface module that provides a user of the computer system with the ability to enable or disable initiation of data backup. 10. When polled by a suitably configured computer system, the computer system polls the disk drive for providing information about the status of the disk drive, retrieving the selected value and the information. Computer readable media comprising a computer program for performing the steps of: comparing; starting a backup of data stored on the disk drive device. 11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the computer program further causes the computer to perform the steps of: providing a user interface for editing the selected value. 12. The computer program, wherein the computer program is further operable by a user to initiate a backup of data stored on the disk drive device, regardless of comparing the information to the selected value. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the steps comprise providing a user interface that allows for enabling or disabling. 13. The computer program, wherein the computer program further causes the computer to perform steps including: checking a backup device for suitable media before initiating a backup of data stored on the disk drive device. Item 13. A computer-readable medium according to Item 10. 14. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the computer program causes the computer to further perform steps including: providing a plurality of messages regarding the status of the backup and the disk drive device. . 15. A computer system, comprising: a processor coupled to a storage device; a system controller coupled to the processor and the storage device; a system bus coupled to the system controller; A display coupled to the system bus; a disk drive coupled to the system bus and having integrated performance monitoring and status reporting; a tape drive coupled to the system bus; and the disk A polling module that polls the disk drive to determine the current state of the drive; anda data on the disk drive on appropriate media in the tape drive based on the state of the disk drive. Backup Computer system comprising a tape drive module starts to. 16. A message instructing a user of the memory system to provide an appropriate medium for the tape drive before starting backup of data stored on the disk drive. The computer system of claim 15, comprising a system. 17. The computer system according to claim 16, wherein said message system further notifies a user of a status of backup of said data. 18. The tape drive module according to claim 15, wherein the tape drive module stores a history of backup operations and disables the start of data backup if a previous backup has been performed within a specific time period. Computer system as described. 19. The computer system of claim 15, wherein the disk drive includes a register, and the polling module polls the register to determine a current state of the disk drive. 20. The computer system of claim 15, further comprising an interface module that provides a user of the computer system with the ability to enable or disable initiation of data backup.