JP5725374B2 - Disk array device and power consumption reduction method thereof - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a disk array device and a power consumption reduction method thereof.

  In recent years, many disk array devices having a plurality of storage devices for processing a large amount of data have become widespread. In such a disk array device, for example, a communication connection standard (hereinafter referred to as “interface”) that a storage device represented by a hard disk drive (hereinafter referred to as “HDD”) is a standard is SAS (Serial Attached). SCS) and SATA (Serial ATA) are representative. For this reason, the internal configuration of a disk array device whose role is to manage a plurality of HDDs is generally a configuration in which a large number of devices operating on the SAS interface (hereinafter referred to as “SAS devices”) are owned. It is. The connection between the SAS devices is generally a system in which a large number of signal lines called lanes are bundled and connected to improve the data transfer amount.

  For example, as a technique for reducing the power consumption of a disk array device configured to connect devices with a SAS interface, the voltage amplitude of the idle pattern is gradually reduced after the link of the SAS interface is established, and the link is down. A device that performs link-up again is known (see, for example, Patent Document 1). According to this technology, power consumption can be reduced by suppressing voltage amplitude and transmission of idle patterns due to link down, and the recovery speed of unused lanes is in a standby state in which link up can be performed immediately after link down. Can be faster.

JP 2010-183223 A

  One of the features of the current SAS interface is that it has a very high transfer rate. Therefore, extremely high-speed communication is possible in SAS interface communication such as between SAS devices or between HDDs. On the other hand, interfaces other than the SAS used in the disk array apparatus often do not have a communication speed as high as the SAS interface, and even if a SAS device having an appropriate number of lanes is selected, the inter-SAS devices are not connected. There are not many cases where all the lanes are always used for data transfer.

  For this reason, the SAS interface is often in a data standby state, and although the connection of the SAS interface has been established, it is often not used (also called an idle state). Even in such an idle state, specific data called an idle pattern continues to flow through the lane, and the SAS device continues to consume power.

  Here, the technique described in Patent Document 1 keeps consuming the basic power for lane operation because the valid state of the lane itself is maintained even when the link is down.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a disk array device and a power consumption reduction method for the disk array device that can reduce power consumption of an interface in an idle state. is there.

  In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides a disk array apparatus having a plurality of devices for performing data transfer, the first interface for transferring data between the devices, and the first interface for transferring data between the devices. A second interface that performs the data transfer at a higher speed than the interface, the second interface that performs the data transfer using a plurality of lanes, and the load status of the data transfer processing of the second interface, and based on the monitoring result And a lane number variation control unit that disables one or more lanes of the plurality of lanes when the second interface is determined to be in an idle state.

  In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a method for reducing power consumption of a disk array apparatus having a plurality of devices that perform data transfer, wherein the disk array apparatus performs first data transfer between the devices. An interface and a second interface that performs data transfer between the devices at a higher speed than the first interface, and performs the data transfer using a plurality of lanes, and the power consumption reduction method includes: If it is determined that the second interface is in an idle state based on the monitoring result of the load status of the data transfer processing of the second interface and the monitoring result of the load status, one or more of the plurality of lanes And a step of invalidating the lane.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a disk array device and a power consumption reduction method for the disk array device that can reduce the power consumption of an interface in an idle state.

It is a figure which shows the structure of the disk array apparatus based on embodiment of this invention. It is a figure for demonstrating the number of effective lanes at the time of the low load and the high load which concern on the embodiment.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram schematically showing the configuration of the disk array system 100. As shown in FIG. 1, the disk array system 100 includes a host computer 1, a self-system disk array apparatus 10, and another system disk array apparatus 20.

  The host computer 1 transmits various commands to the disk array device 10. The disk array device 10 executes a process according to a command transmitted from the host computer 1. Further, the disk array device 10 performs data transfer with the disk array device 20 as necessary.

  The disk array device 10 includes a processor (lane number variation control unit) 11, SAS (Serial Attached SCS) controllers 12 and 13, SAS expanders 14, 15 and 16, and a plurality of HDDs (hard disk drives) 17. Yes. Since the configuration other than the configuration related to the SAS interface in the disk array device 10 is the same as the conventional one, illustration and description are omitted.

  For example, as shown in FIG. 1, in the disk array device 10, the processor 11 is connected to the SAS controllers 12 and 13, and the SAS expanders 14 and 15 are connected to the SAS controller 12. A SAS expander 16 is connected to the SAS expander 14, and a SAS expander (labor saving in the figure) is connected to the SAS expander 15. A plurality of HDDs 17 are connected to the SAS expander 14. Note that the SAS expander 14 and the HDD 17 are connected by, for example, a serial ATA interface (first interface).

  The disk array device 20 includes, for example, at least a processor 21 and a SAS controller 22 connected to the processor 21, and the SAS controller 22 is connected to the SAS controller 13 of the disk array device 10. Therefore, the disk array device 20 can receive data from the disk array device 10 via the SAS controllers 22 and 13, and can store data stored in the disk array device 10 redundantly. ing.

  In the disk array system 100, the SAS controllers 12, 13, and 22 and the SAS expanders 14, 15, and 16 are SAS devices, respectively, and the SAS interface (second interface) is used to connect the above SASs. Data transfer can be performed at a higher speed than the data transfer between the expander 14 and the HDD 17. The SAS interface is configured to be connected via a plurality of lanes 30. In the present embodiment, the plurality of lanes 30 are described as having eight lanes, but the present invention is not limited to this.

  Next, the flow of data processed by the disk array system 100 will be described. In the present embodiment, a case where the disk array device 10 receives a data write command (hereinafter referred to as “write”) from the host computer 1 will be described as an example.

  The processor 11 transmits data to the SAS controller 12, and the SAS controller 12 transmits the data to a SAS expander existing under its control, for example, the SAS expander 14. The SAS expander 14 that has received the data further transmits the data to the SAS expander 16 connected to itself. This data transfer is performed until the data reaches the SAS expander having the HDD 17 that stores the data. Finally, the data is written to the HDD 17 by transferring the data to the SAS expander having the data storage target HDD 17 under control, for example, the SAS expander 16, and the write operation is completed.

  Further, since the disk array system 100 has a redundant configuration with the disarray devices 10 and 20, the local SAS controller 13 transfers the above data to the other SAS controller 22. For this reason, the SAS controller 13 and the SAS controller 22, the SAS controller 12 and the SAS expander 14, and the SAS expander 14 and the SAS expander 16 are used for data transfer between the SAS devices, and there are places where the SAS interface 10 is used. Become more.

  The disk array system 100 is configured to vary the number of operating lanes of the SAS interface depending on the load status. Processing for changing the number of operation lanes will be described with reference to FIG. In the figure, the upper side shows the number of operating lanes when the load is low, and the lower side shows the number of operating lanes when the load is high. Further, 31 indicates the amount of data waiting for processing.

  As shown in the upper side of FIG. 2, for example, when data transfer processing from the host computer 1 is under low load, the processor 11 performs data transfer using only a small number of lanes (Lane) such as Lane # 0 and # 1. As shown on the lower side of the figure, when the data transfer process is under heavy load, control is performed so that data transfer is performed using all 8 lanes.

  The processor 11 performs monitoring of the data transfer process and determination and monitoring of whether the data transfer process has a low load or a high load. The processor 11 monitors the load status of the data transfer process between the SAS interfaces, and when it is determined that the load is in the idle state as a result of the load status determination, for example, the SAS controller 12 is predetermined to the operation lane of the SAS interface in the idle state. A lane OFF instruction to turn off the number of operation lanes (OFF: stop power consumption) is transmitted.

  In addition, when the lane OFF instruction is an instruction to be transmitted to the SAS expander, the SAS controller 12 transmits a lane OFF instruction to the subordinate SAS expander. In this way, the processor 11 can perform fluctuation control of the number of operation lanes of all SAS interfaces.

  As an example of a more detailed control method, the processor 11 performs monitoring of the load status in units of days or weeks, and based on the monitoring result, fluctuation control of the number of operating lanes so as to reduce the number of operating lanes in a specific time zone unit in advance. You may do it. This makes it possible to perform fluctuation control of the number of operating lanes of the SAS interface in the idle state without taking measures such as adding a circuit to the disk array apparatuses 10 and 20.

  As described above, according to the disk array device 10 of the present embodiment, the operation lanes of the SAS interface in the idle state are turned off by a predetermined number of times (power consumption is stopped), in other words, by being in the invalid state. The basic power used for the lanes whose power consumption has stopped is no longer necessary, and the power consumption can be reduced when the SAS interface is in an idle state.

  In addition, this invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiment, A various deformation | transformation is possible in the case of the implementation.

  A part or all of the above embodiment can be described as in the following supplementary notes, but is not limited thereto.

(Appendix 1)
A disk array device having a plurality of devices for performing data transfer,
A first interface for transferring data between the devices;
A second interface for performing data transfer between the devices at a higher speed than the first interface, wherein the second interface performs the data transfer using a plurality of lanes;
When the load status of the data transfer processing of the second interface is monitored and it is determined that the second interface is in an idle state based on the monitoring result, one or more lanes of the plurality of lanes are set to an invalid state. Lane number variation control unit to perform,
A disk array device comprising:

(Appendix 2)
The disk array device according to appendix 1, wherein the lane number variation control unit determines a lane to be invalidated according to a time zone based on the monitoring result.

(Appendix 3)
The disk array device according to appendix 1 or 2, wherein a communication connection standard of the second interface conforms to a SAS (Serial Attached SCS) standard.

(Appendix 4)
A method for reducing power consumption of a disk array device having a plurality of devices that perform data transfer,
The disk array device
A first interface for transferring data between the devices;
A second interface that performs data transfer between the devices at a higher speed than the first interface, the second interface performing the data transfer using a plurality of lanes, and
The power consumption reduction method is:
Monitoring the load status of the data transfer processing of the second interface;
When it is determined that the second interface is in an idle state based on the monitoring result of the load status, a step of disabling one or more lanes among the plurality of lanes;
A method for reducing power consumption, comprising:

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Host computer 10, 20 ... Disk array apparatus 11, 21 ... Processor 12, 13, 22 ... SAS controller 14, 15, 16 ... SAS expander 17 ... HDD
100: Disk array system

Claims (3)

A disk array device having a plurality of devices for performing data transfer,
An interface for transferring data between the devices, wherein the data transfer is performed using a plurality of lanes;
The load status of the data transfer process of the interface is monitored, and if it is determined that the interface is in an idle state based on the monitoring result, the number of lanes changes to invalidate one or more lanes of the plurality of lanes A control unit;
With
The disk array device according to claim 1, wherein the lane number variation control unit controls the number of valid lanes to be reduced in advance in a predetermined time zone based on the monitoring result.   2. The disk array device according to claim 1, wherein a communication connection standard of the interface conforms to a SAS (Serial Attached SCS) standard. A method for reducing power consumption of a disk array device having a plurality of devices that perform data transfer,
The disk array device
An interface for performing data transfer between the devices, wherein the data transfer is performed using a plurality of lanes.
Prepared,
The power consumption reduction method is:
Monitoring the load status of the data transfer processing of the interface;
When it is determined that the interface is in an idle state based on the monitoring result of the load status, a step of disabling one or more lanes of the plurality of lanes;
Have
The step of disabling includes a method for reducing the number of valid lanes in advance in a predetermined time period based on the monitoring result.

Images