Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing extended disk sector formatting to assist in backup and hierarchical storage management is disclosed. A part of the extended sector format is used to include a field for indicating whether data was written since the last backup. This backup field may be a single bit or could be larger to indicate age since last backup.

Abstract: A data storage system that includes computer coupled to disk array controller which is coupled to data storage devices. First procedure provides a method to perform data consistency checking and correction of user data stored in data sectors on a data stripe. Each data sector includes data header and data stripe includes a parity sector, and parity sector includes a parity header. Data stripe is distributed across storage devices. Provides each data header with first code to provide a check for the user data stored in the data header's data segment, provides the parity header with second code to provide a check for a set of parity data stored in parity sector, and provides the parity header with third code by encoding each respective first code with second code. Third code enables user to check consistency of user data and parity data without respective operations on each byte of data in both data sectors and parity sector.

Abstract: A method, computer readable medium, apparatus and RAID controller for performing nondestructive write testing is disclosed. For data storage devices divided into sectors, the present invention performs nondestructive write testing by writing data to the sectors, reading data written to the sectors, and comparing the data written to the data read to detect errors. To increase efficiency, sectors previously written by a host or other computer are tracked, allowing sectors not previously written to be tested without saving and restoring data in the sectors. To locate the sectors written to by the host computer, write indicators such as a sector written indicator, a sector stripe written indicator, and a stripe written indicator are maintained. Upon detecting a defective sector, a new sector is allocated, and the defective sector is replaced by the allocated sector.

Abstract: The invention provides system, apparatus and procedure to coordinate the data management operations in a data storage system. The data management operations are performed on data stripes, which are distributed across a plurality of disk drives. According to the procedural aspect of the invention a task director first executes a first operation and a second operation of the data management operations at a concurrent time. The first operation is a different operation than the second operation. The first operation includes a first set of tasks and the second operation includes a second set of tasks. The execution of each task of the first and second sets of tasks are directed by the task director.

Abstract: Whenever a controller receives a message that includes a particular target ID and a particular computer's operating requirements with respect to the operation of the plurality of logical units mapped across a plurality of disk storage devices, the controller stores one set of the particular computer's operating requirements per target ID per logical unit. Each host computer in a data storage system that has substantially similar operating requirements uses the same target ID in any I/O requests to a controller. Subsequently, whenever the controller processes an I/O request from any computer that uses the particular target ID, the controller will use the particular set of the operating requirements to configure the operation of each of the logical units.