JP2011215664A - Fault symptom diagnosis method for hard disk device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To execute a fault symptom diagnosis of a hard disk device to avoid an influence on a computer system.SOLUTION: In regard hard disk devices triplicated by software mirroring, fault symptom diagnosis is executed by excluding one hard disk device from software mirroring by means of a program for canceling software mirroring. Even on fault occurrence in a hard disk device performing an online job during execution of the fault symptom diagnosis, two hard disk devices maintain the retention of data redundancy by software mirroring. Accordingly, early fault detection in the hard disk device is made without affecting the computer system, and then the computer system availability is enhanced. The execution frequency of the fault symptom diagnosis is determined according to the length of operating time stored in the internal statistic information of the hard disk device.

Description

  The present invention relates to a failure diagnosis method for hard disk drives multiplexed by software mirroring.

  In a computer system that operates continuously for a long period of time, a technique for maintaining data redundancy by disk mirroring is used in order to avoid a situation in which an online operation is stopped due to a failure of a hard disk device. Disk mirroring includes hardware mirroring using dedicated hardware and software mirroring using dedicated software on the operating system. The advantage of software mirroring is that it can be realized at a lower cost than hardware mirroring by a method of mirroring two hard disk devices using dedicated software without using special hardware.

  In hard disk devices, computer systems can be continued for a long period of time by detecting signs of failure at an early stage without affecting users' online operations, and replacing hard disk devices with signs of failure during business operations. It is required to operate.

  Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-76561 discloses an example of monitoring and restoring a failure of a hard disk device configured by software mirroring. The one disclosed in this publication monitors the synchronization status of software mirroring using two hard disk devices, performs disk formatting on the failed disk that caused the synchronization failure, and resynchronizes with software mirroring. A fault monitoring and recovery system is provided.

  An example of diagnosing a hard disk device during online work is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-029638. What is disclosed in this publication provides a mirror disk diagnosis method in which two hard disk devices are mirrored and an access failure is diagnosed by reading all data areas of one of the hard disk devices during an online operation.

Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-76561 JP 2000-029638 A

  In the conventional technology, in a mirroring configuration with two hard disk devices, a method of executing a program for diagnosing the presence or absence of an unreadable failure with respect to one hard disk device or software mirroring with two hard disk devices is synchronized. The failure rate of the hard disk drive is reduced by early detection and countermeasures for hard disk drive failure, such as by performing media formatting on the hard disk drive where the fraud occurred and rebuilding software mirroring again.

  On the other hand, since recent hard disk devices have advanced manufacturing technology and the quality is uniform, hard disk devices manufactured at the same time tend to have a high possibility of failure at the same time. In the conventional technology, when a failure occurs in one hard disk device and a failure occurs in the other hard disk device, data redundancy cannot be maintained. In this case, it leads to data loss and system down.

  In the present invention, there is no influence on the computer system when a failure occurs in a hard disk device that performs online operations during hard disk drive failure diagnosis and countermeasures in a hard disk device multiplexed by software mirroring. In addition, a method for diagnosing the soundness of a hard disk device while maintaining data redundancy and detecting a failure at an early stage is provided.

  One hard disk device is added to a duplicated software mirroring configuration composed of two hard disk devices by a program for executing construction / cancellation of software mirroring, and triple software mirroring composed of three hard disk devices is constructed. When performing a predictive failure diagnosis of a hard disk device, one of the three hard disk devices is separated from the software mirroring by a program for canceling the software mirroring on the operating system, and is composed of two hard disk devices Build software mirroring. At this time, the user's online work is performed by two hard disk devices mirrored by software. The hard disk device for which software mirroring has been canceled becomes unused. At this time, the hard disk device diagnosis program on the operating system reads / writes the entire data area including the unused area of the hard disk device data for each block unit, thereby checking whether there is an access failure for each block unit of the data. By detecting it, it becomes possible to carry out failure predictive diagnosis.

  If a failure requiring replacement of the hard disk device is detected during execution of the hard disk device diagnostic program, failure information is displayed on the operating system, and the hard disk device is replaced with a replacement hard disk device. After the replacement, the control program C is executed again to perform failure sign diagnosis. If an access failure for each block of data is not detected when the hard disk device diagnostic program is executed and the hard disk device diagnostic program is terminated normally, the hard disk device uses two programs to build / cancel software mirroring on the operating system. Redundant software mirroring consisting of devices is reconstructed, and one hard disk device added for predictive failure diagnosis is released.

  The execution of the hard disk device diagnosis program is sequentially performed on all hard disk devices constituting software mirroring and on all hard disk devices prepared for diagnosis. Further, the frequency of execution of failure predictive diagnosis is determined by the length of operation time of each hard disk device, the number of occurrences of access failures, and the like.

  In a computer system having hard disk devices multiplexed by software mirroring, it is possible to perform predictive failure diagnosis by reading / writing the entire data area of the hard disk device for each block while maintaining data redundancy by software mirroring. Therefore, even when a failure occurs in a hard disk device that performs online operations during failure sign diagnosis, failure prediction diagnosis of the hard disk device can be performed without affecting online operations.

  In addition, it is possible to improve the soundness of the hard disk device and to increase the availability of the computer system by sequentially performing failure predictive diagnosis according to the length of operation time for all hard disk devices that constitute software mirroring. can get.

It is a figure which shows embodiment of the failure sign diagnostic system of the hard-disk apparatus of this invention. It is a figure explaining a hard disk apparatus diagnostic program. It is a figure which shows the flowchart of a hard disk apparatus diagnostic program. It is a figure which shows the failure sign diagnostic system in an Example. It is a figure explaining the structure of the hard-disk apparatus in a triple mirroring system. It is a figure which shows the implementation frequency of the failure sign diagnosis of the hard disk devices 1, 2, and 3. It is a figure which shows the implementation frequency of the failure sign diagnosis after replacement | exchange of the hard disk drive.

  An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

  By the program A that executes software mirroring construction / cancellation, the hard disk device 3 is added to the duplicated software mirroring 4 constituted by the hard disk devices 1 and 2, and the tripled software mirroring 6 is constructed. On the operating system 5, a program A for executing software mirroring construction / cancellation on the target hard disk device, a hard disk device diagnosis program B for executing failure predictive diagnosis by reading / writing all data areas of the hard disk device, etc. A control program C for executing the programs A and B for each hard disk device configured by software mirroring and changing the execution frequency of failure sign diagnosis according to the operation time of the hard disk device is provided. All of these programs are executed by issuing commands from the operating system.

  When a command is issued from the operating system 5 and the control program C is executed, the mirror cancellation program of the mirror construction / cancellation program A is first executed. The triple software mirroring hard disk device 1 is released from the software mirroring, and the double software mirroring 7 including the hard disk devices 2 and 3 and the unused hard disk device 1 are configured. Thereafter, the hard disk device diagnosis program B on the operating system 5 is executed on the hard disk device 1 whose software mirroring has been canceled. The hard disk device 1 is in an unused state by canceling the software mirroring, and reading / writing for each block unit with respect to the used area and the unused data area of the hard disk device without affecting the online operation. Predictive failure diagnosis can be performed.

  If failure information of the hard disk device 1 is not detected at the end of the hard disk device diagnostic program B, the mirror construction / cancellation program A is executed for the duplicate software mirroring 7 composed of the hard disk devices 2 and 3. Then, a triple software mirroring 6 to which the hard disk device 1 is added is constructed. After the hard disk devices 1, 2 and 3 are constructed in triplicate software mirroring, the mirror construction / cancellation program A program is executed and canceled to reconstruct the duplicate software mirroring 4 comprising the hard disk devices 1 and 2.

  The control program C uses the above-described mirror construction / cancellation program A and hard disk device diagnosis program B to sequentially perform predictive failure diagnosis on the hard disk devices constituting n sets of duplicate software mirroring in the computer system. carry out. The control program C can be substituted by sequentially executing commands.

The hard disk device diagnosis program will be described with reference to FIG.
When a command for executing the hard disk device diagnosis program B is issued from the operating system 5, a specific block unit (64 KB) is assigned to all data regions from the beginning to the end of the data region of the hard disk device 1 released from the software mirroring. A failure predictive diagnosis is performed by reading / writing data every time. When the failure predictor diagnosis is performed, the “execution time” and “execution result (whether or not a failure has occurred)” by reading / writing for each block unit are confirmed and displayed on the operating system 5 during execution. Even if a failure occurs during failure sign diagnosis, the failure sign diagnosis is carried out until reading / writing is completed for each block in the entire data area. When a failure occurs, “detailed information of failure” in block units in the hard disk device 1 is displayed on the operating system 5 after the failure sign diagnosis of all data areas is completed.

  In addition to the failure information described above, the failure information in the internal statistical information of the hard disk device is detected by the hard disk device diagnosis program B for the failure recovered by the internal retry process of the hard disk device 1, and the “detailed information of failure” is displayed. It is displayed on the operating system 5. Recovered by a retry process inside the hard disk device, and detects an abnormal value (delay) of “execution time” by the hard disk device diagnosis program B even for a failure that is not left in the internal statistical information of the hard disk device 1. Is determined to be within the allowable range, and when it is determined that there is a failure, it is displayed on the operating system 5 as “detailed information on the failure”.

The flow of the hard disk device diagnosis program will be described with reference to FIG.
When failure information is detected in the hard disk device by reading / writing data in block units (64 KB) by executing the hard disk diagnostic program (101), it is first determined whether the failure has been recovered by retry processing inside the disk. Judgment is made (102). If the detected failure is not recovered by the retry process, the failure information is collected and the detected “detailed information of failure” is displayed on the operating system (110). In the case of a failure recovered by retry processing, it is determined whether there is failure information in the statistical information inside the disk. (103) If there is failure information in the statistical information inside the disk, the failure information is collected (108) and “detailed information on failure” is displayed on the operating system (110). If there is no failure information in the statistical information inside the disk, it is determined whether there is an abnormal value (delay) in the read / write execution time in block units (104). When the number of abnormal value detections exceeds the allowable range (105), "detailed information on failure" is displayed on the operating system (110).

  The soundness of the hard disk device can be diagnosed by executing the above-described failure sign diagnosis work on the entire data area of the hard disk device for each block.

With reference to FIG. 4, the failure sign diagnosis method in the embodiment will be described.
When a command for executing the control program C is issued from the operating system 5, the mirror construction program of the mirror construction / cancellation program A is executed, and the hard disk is connected to the duplicated software mirroring 4 constituted by the hard disk devices 1 and 2 in the computer system. The device 3 is added to form a triple software mirroring 6 including three hard disk devices.
When the control program C confirms the normal completion of the mirror construction program, the mirror construction program of the mirror construction / cancellation program A is executed for the triple software mirroring, and the mirror construction / cancellation of the hard disk device 1 of the triple software mirroring 6 is executed. The mirror cancellation program of the cancellation program A is executed. The hard disk devices 1, 2, and 3, which are constructed in the triple software mirroring 6 after the hard disk device 1 is released from the software mirroring, are the double software mirroring 7 composed of the hard disk devices 2 and 3 and the released hard disk device 1 It becomes a composition.

  When the control program C confirms the normal end of the mirror cancellation program, the hard disk device diagnosis program B is executed on the hard disk device 1 that has been released from software mirroring and has not been used. At this time, since the redundant software mirroring configuration 4 is held by the hard disk devices 2 and 3, a failure occurs in either of the hard disk devices 2 or 3 while the hard disk device diagnostic program B is executed on the hard disk device 1. This will not affect your online business. When the control program C confirms the normal termination of the hard disk device diagnostic program B, the mirror construction / cancellation program A is executed to reconstruct the duplex software mirroring 4 comprising the hard disk devices 1 and 2 and release the hard disk device 3 from the software mirroring. To do.

  If a failure occurs during execution of the mirror construction / cancellation program A, or if failure information is displayed on the operating system when the hard disk device diagnostic program B is executed, the failed hard disk device is replaced, and the control program C is executed again. Execute, configure the triple software mirroring 6 by the mirror construction / cancellation program A, and start failure predictive diagnosis. When the failure sign diagnosis of the hard disk device 1 is normally completed, the failure sign diagnosis of the hard disk device 2 is started. The hard disk devices 2 and 3 constitute the software mirroring 7 when the hard disk device 1 is performing the failure sign diagnosis by the hard disk device diagnosis program B, and the hard disk device 2 is subjected to the failure sign diagnosis by the hard disk device diagnosis program B. When implemented, the hard disk devices 1 and 3 constitute the software mirroring 8.

  As described above, when predictive failure diagnosis is performed on a hard disk device that constitutes software mirroring, it is sequentially performed in a state where data redundancy is maintained by redundant software mirroring.

  Further, the frequency of the failure predictive diagnosis is determined according to the time when the failure occurrence rate becomes high depending on the length of operation time of each hard disk device.

  With reference to FIG. 5, the configuration of the hard disk device in the construction of triple software mirroring will be described. When constructing triple software mirroring from double software mirroring, n sets of double software mirroring configurations (201 to 203) in a computer system can be configured as one hard disk device (205) without separately adding additional hard disk devices. ) Is used for sequential software mirroring to implement failure predictive diagnosis with fewer hard disk devices.

A plurality of hard disk drives (205) are added to a single hard disk drive (204) that does not constitute software mirroring to construct triple software mirroring, and a failure predictive diagnosis method for the hard disk drive is implemented.
In case of a failure in the hard disk drive to be added, multiple hard disk drives to be added to configure triple software mirroring (m)
To select and use when configuring triple software mirroring.

  With reference to FIGS. 6 and 7, the frequency of execution of the failure sign diagnosis of the hard disk device will be described.

  As a tendency of the failure occurrence rate of the hard disk device, the failure rate becomes higher as the operation time elapses. Further, since hard disk devices in recent years have been improved in manufacturing technology and have been made uniform in quality, hard disk devices manufactured in the same period tend to be more likely to fail in the same period.

  For example, in FIG. 6, since the operation of the hard disk devices 1, 2, and 3 is started at the same time, the failure rate curve failure rate curve (301) with respect to the operation time of the hard disk device overlaps. Since the operation time is short and the failure rate is low during the period from the start of operation to (302), the failure predictive diagnosis of the hard disk devices 1, 2, and 3 is performed less frequently. During the period after (302), since the operating time of the hard disk devices 1, 2 and 3 becomes longer and the failure rate becomes higher, the failure predictor diagnosis of the hard disk devices 1, 2 and 3 is performed as the failure rate curve (301) rises. Increase the frequency.

  In FIG. 7, the failure rate curve (304) of the hard disk device 1 after detecting and replacing the failure of the hard disk device 1 shown in FIG. 6 and the hard disk device 1 start operating at the same time and operate without detecting the failure. The failure rate curves of the hard disk devices 2 and 3 that continue the operation are shown (303). Since the hard disk device 1 that has been detected and replaced at the time has started operation from (302), the operation time is short and the failure rate is low during the period from (302) to low frequency, so the frequency of the failure predictive diagnosis of the hard disk device 1 is low. To implement. Since the hard disk devices 2 and 3 that continue to operate without detecting a failure have a long operation time and a high failure rate, the failure predictive diagnosis is frequently performed.

  The control program C determines the frequency of execution of failure predictive diagnosis for the hard disk devices 1, 2, and 3 constituting the triple software mirroring in consideration of the above-mentioned tendency according to the operating time of the hard disk device. The operating time of the hard disk device is used by detecting the operating time of the internal statistical information of each hard disk device. Further, there is a method of determining the frequency of performing the failure sign diagnosis based on the frequency of occurrence of an access failure of the hard disk device.

1 to 3 Hard disk device 4 Software mirroring configured by triple operation 5 Operating system 6 to 8 Software mirroring configured by duplex A Software mirroring construction / cancellation program B Hard disk device diagnosis program C Control program 101 to 110 Hard disk device diagnosis program 2 shows a duplicated software mirroring configuration composed of two hard disk devices.
301 to 303 show failure rate curves with respect to the operating time of the hard disk device.
304 to 305 Indicates the operating time period of the hard disk device.

Claims (5)

  A program for executing software mirroring construction / cancellation on the operating system, and a program for executing predictive failure diagnosis by reading / writing data in all data areas of the hard disk device that has become unused due to the cancellation of software mirroring. , Has a program to control these programs, and predictive failure diagnosis for one hard disk device configured by software mirroring during online work, always kept data redundancy by software mirroring consisting of two hard disk devices A failure sign diagnosis method for a hard disk device, which is performed in a state.   According to the hard disk device failure predictive diagnosis method of claim 1, the soundness of the hard disk device is improved by a program that is sequentially executed for all hard disk devices configured by software mirroring and all additional hard disk devices. A predictive failure diagnosis method for hard disk devices characterized by maintaining computer system availability.   When the triple software mirroring for implementing the failure predictive diagnosis method of the hard disk device according to claim 1 is constructed with respect to the n sets of software mirroring configurations normally configured by the double software mirroring, it is added. It is characterized by performing failure predictive diagnosis with fewer hard disk devices by selecting one of the plurality of hard disk devices and constructing a triple software mirroring sequentially without having to separately prepare the hard disk devices. A predictive failure diagnosis method for hard disk drives.   The hard disk drive failure diagnosis method according to claim 1 is enabled by adding a plurality of hard disk drives to a hard disk drive that does not constitute software mirroring. A predictive failure diagnosis method for hard disk drives, characterized by maintaining high availability and increasing the availability of computer systems.   The execution frequency of failure predictive diagnosis for a hard disk device configured by software mirroring of the hard disk device failure predictive diagnosis method according to claim 1 is determined according to the length of operating time of internal statistical information of the hard disk device. A predictive failure diagnosis method for a hard disk drive, characterized by being implemented.

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