JPH07319740A - Information file device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent the occurrence of fatal faults through the proper treatments for an information file device which has an access of the picture/writing information to an external storage medium by managing the occurrence information on a fault, if a fault has occurred at a medium, as the frequency information for each drive and medium, and deciding the comparison to be carried out with the reference value of a critical fault and the tendency of the fault occurrence rate in order to decide whether the fault is caused by a drive or a medium. CONSTITUTION:The information file device consists of a main control part 1 which carries out various processing procedures, an information input part 2, an information display part 3, a medium drive 5, a frequency information setting part 61 which sets the frequency information on the accesses and the faults, etc. The part 1 includes a frequency information set totalizing means 12 which acquires the fault frequency from the drive 5 and totalizes and stores the frequency, and a means 13 which calculates each fault rate from the contents of the frequency information set and then perform displaying, warning and notifying of various messages.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information file device for storing drawing information such as an image or a character code in a portable information storage medium (external storage medium) such as a magneto-optical disk and utilizing it for retrieval.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A portable information storage medium (hereinafter referred to as a portable information storage medium) which has been widely used as one of information exchange means between information processing apparatuses due to diversification of information, multimedia, and increase of information amount. Abbreviation of storage medium and simply “external storage medium”
Said) has changed from a floppy disk to an external storage medium such as a larger-capacity magneto-optical disk.

As an example of an information processing apparatus utilizing an external storage medium, for example, an optical filing system SOF-FS21 manufactured by Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., a document such as a document or a drawing is read and the document (that is, image information) is read. The amount of information is compressed by digital data compression / expansion processing technology, stored in an external storage medium such as a magneto-optical disk, and the information is searched and read as needed, and the read image information is processed by the compression / expansion processing technology. Has been put into practical use by decompressing a file and displaying the information.

The amount of information stored in the external storage medium is large, and once a failure occurs and the information in the external storage medium cannot be read, the information as intellectual property is lost. Since the external storage medium lacks in hermeticity mainly due to its portability as an advantage, the external storage medium or the external storage medium drive device can be used for a long time when compared to other large capacity hard disks due to its structure. Since dirt such as dust adheres to the external storage medium drive device (hereinafter, abbreviated as a drive), a failure in access to the external storage medium is likely to occur.

At the time of failure occurrence and inspection for preventing failure occurrence, the external storage medium and / or the drive pickup is cleaned to recover the failure or prevent the occurrence of a fatal failure. If the failure is due to the medium, the failure is not removed by cleaning the drive, and conversely, if the failure is due to the drive, the failure is not removed by cleaning the external storage medium. Therefore, in the case of an initial failure in which the failure is recovered by cleaning, the failure can be easily repaired by accurately determining the cause of the failure and performing cleaning.

If the failure cannot be recovered even after the cleaning, it is judged whether the cause of the failure is the external storage medium or the drive. If the cause of the failure is the external storage medium, the contents of the external storage medium are determined. After copying all of them to another new external storage medium, the external storage medium on the source side where the failure occurred is discarded, and if the cause of the failure is the drive, the drive is repaired or parts or units are replaced. However, it is necessary to recover from the failure. Since there is not enough information to determine whether the cause of the failure is in the external storage medium or in the drive, the actual situation is that it cannot be accurately determined.

For example, as shown in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 3-192578, the number of times of occurrence of a failure is stored, and when a certain upper limit value is reached, cleaning of the drive is urged, or in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 3-1.
As shown in Japanese Patent No. 34728, the number of times of occurrence of a failure is stored for each of a plurality of drives. Similarly, when a certain upper limit value is reached, the drive is determined to be unusable, and measures such as switching to a spare drive are made. However, even if a failure occurrence rate reaches a certain limit failure reference value due to a failure based on a failure of a specific external storage medium, it may be erroneously determined to be a drive failure.

The drive (external storage medium drive) rewrites to the alternative sector even if the writing to the sector designated by the main control unit (usually the sector of this medium is called the original sector) fails at the time of writing. Then, the fault is recovered or a fault repair process such as a process by error code correction at the time of read is performed to reduce the load of the fault recovery process on the main controller side. Although the recovered failure is usually not reported to the main control unit side, it often contains a fatal failure that cannot be recovered in the future, and it is a very dangerous state depending on the frequency of failure occurrence.

On the drive side, the number of blocks that have accessed the external storage medium and the number of blocks that have failed in the process of accessing the external storage medium are
Although it is stored inside the drive, since the drive itself handles multiple external storage media, the occurrence of failures is distributed to multiple external storage media. It was difficult to identify if it was in the drive. It should be noted that although failure replacement information regarding alternative sector processing is recorded in the external storage medium, the tendency of catching failures as time series cannot be grasped.

[0010]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and obtains the number of times of failure of a drive, accumulates it as a number of times information set for each external storage medium, and stores the accumulated result. The information can be displayed on the display. Not only the failure that is passed to the main control unit but also the failure that occurred in the restoration process inside the drive, whether all the failures have occurred in a specific external storage medium, or all external storage It is possible to determine whether the cause of the failure is in the external storage medium or the drive by checking whether or not all the failures occur in the medium, and it is possible to accurately determine the cause of the failure. Treatment can be performed.

[0011]

An information file device of the present invention comprises at least an information input unit, an information display unit, and an internal storage unit, and is an information file device for accessing document information to an external storage medium, The access element (read, write,
(Or seek) or the like, and the number of access element failures that occur in the process of performing the access, are acquired from the external storage medium drive device, and each external storage medium or external storage medium drive device is used as a frequency information set. A result obtained by dividing the number-of-times information set accumulating means placed in the main control unit in the information file device, which is cumulatively managed for each, and the number of failures for each access element in the number-of-times information set by the number of access times for each access element. Is provided as a failure rate for each access element, and failure rate calculation means for calculating each external storage medium and each external storage medium drive device.

Next, the date and time measuring means for measuring the date and time, and at fixed time intervals obtained from the date and time measuring means,
A failure rate for each access element of the number-of-times information set of the external storage medium is calculated, and if any failure rate for each access element is equal to or higher than the corresponding first external storage medium limit failure reference value, the reference value is set. External storage medium cleaning warning display means for displaying a warning prompting the cleaning of the exceeded external storage medium on the information display section.

Further, the date and time measuring means for measuring the date and time, and the failure rate for each access element of the number information set of the external storage medium are calculated at regular time intervals obtained from the date and time measuring means, and the access element is calculated. One of the different failure rates
When the value is equal to or larger than the corresponding second external storage medium limit failure reference value, the external storage medium exceeding the reference value is changed to a new write prohibition mode, and the change to the prohibition mode is displayed on the information display unit. External storage medium write prohibition notifying means for notifying.

Similarly, the date and time measuring means for measuring the date and time, and the failure rate for each access element of the number-of-times information set of the external storage medium drive device are calculated at regular time intervals obtained from the date and time measuring means, If the failure rate of any of the access elements is greater than or equal to the corresponding first external storage medium drive device limit failure reference value, a warning prompting cleaning of the external storage medium drive device exceeding the reference value is displayed on the information display unit. An external storage medium driving device cleaning warning display means for notifying.

Further, a date and time measuring means for measuring the date and time, and a failure rate for each access element of the number-of-times information set of the external storage medium drive device are calculated at regular time intervals obtained from the date and time measuring means, If any failure rate for each access element is equal to or greater than the corresponding second external storage medium drive device limit failure reference value, the external storage medium drive device that exceeds the reference value is set to a new write prohibit mode. External storage medium drive device write prohibition notification means for notifying the change and the information display section of the change to the write prohibition mode, and external storage medium drive apparatus repair warning display means for displaying a warning prompting repair or replacement on the information display section And are provided.

Similarly, the external storage medium cleaning completion reporting means for reporting the completion of cleaning of the external storage medium after the external storage medium cleaning warning display or the external storage medium write prohibition notification is notified from the information input unit, and the number of times is determined by the cleaning completion report. The number of times information set clear means for clearing the number of times of access and the number of failures for each access element in the number of times information set corresponding to the information set section and updating the cumulative start date and time for each access element, and the corresponding external storage medium An external storage medium write prohibition canceling means for canceling the subsequent write prohibition mode to the corresponding external storage medium by the external storage medium cleaning completion report when the write prohibition mode is set. Characterize.

Similarly, after the external storage medium drive cleaning warning display or the external storage medium drive write prohibition notification, the external storage medium drive is reported from the information input unit that the external storage medium drive is repaired, replaced, or cleaned. A device cleaning completion reporting means, and the number of times the access count and the failure count for each access element in the corresponding frequency information set of the frequency information set section are cleared by the cleaning completion report and the cumulative start date and time for each access element is updated. When the information set clearing means and the corresponding external storage medium driving device are set to a mode for prohibiting subsequent writing, subsequent writing to the external storage medium driving device is performed by the external storage medium driving device cleaning completion report. External storage medium drive device write prohibition canceling means for canceling the prohibition mode.

Further, regarding the external storage medium and the external storage medium drive device, in the number-of-times information set, a failure rate obtained by dividing the number of failures by the access frequency is calculated for each access element, and all external storage media and all external storage media are calculated. By comparing the failure rate for each access element in the storage medium drive, determine whether the cause of the failure is due to a specific external storage medium, or a specific external storage medium drive, It is characterized by having means for determining a cause of failure, which makes it possible to clarify the main cause of the failure.

[0019]

According to the present invention, when performing a process involving access to an external storage medium, the main control unit clears information on the number of failures stored in a drive device (hereinafter referred to as a drive) for the external storage medium. After that, access to the external storage medium is executed, but from this point, the number of failures and the total number of accessed blocks start in the drive. When a series of access to the external storage medium is completed, the main control unit prunes the count information from the drive (requests and acquires the count information and clears all count information at the time of delivery: Get & Reset Buffered LOG), cumulatively stores the count information set for each external storage medium and each drive in the internal storage unit, and displays the count information set together with the name of the external storage medium when the external storage medium is selected. To be displayed on the department.

Further, the main control unit checks the frequency information set for each external storage medium and for each drive for each access element at regular time intervals, and checks the failure occurrence rate which is a value obtained by dividing the failure occurrence frequency by the access frequency. If it exceeds the preset first or second limit obstacle reference value,
Corresponding messages such as a cleaning warning and a light prohibition notification are displayed on the information display section together with the contents of the number-of-times information set.

[0021]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an information file device according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing a procedure for acquiring the number-of-times information set for each external storage medium, and FIG. 3 is a detailed diagram of the number-of-times information setting unit 611 of the external storage medium. 4 (the number-of-times information setting unit 612 for each drive and the number-of-times information setting unit 611 of the external storage medium have exactly the same contents except that the external storage medium ID of M03 is changed to the drive number), and FIG. An example of a display screen of the failure occurrence rate of the external storage medium, FIG. 5 is an example of a schematic diagram showing the position of the information storage state of the external storage medium,
FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing a procedure for displaying a warning, and FIG. 7 is an example of a warning message display screen.

First, the block diagram of the information file device shown in FIG. 1 will be described. The information file device includes at least a main control unit 1 for executing a software program according to various processing procedures, an information input unit 2 for inputting information such as a keyboard and a mouse, or an operation instruction, and an information display for displaying various information as a display device. Unit 3, a drive 5 (which is called a drive) that is an external storage medium drive device, and a number-of-times information setting unit 61 that cumulatively stores the number of times of access and failures, a first and a failure occurrence rate for each medium and for each drive. It is composed of an internal storage unit 6 and the like including limit failure reference values 62 and 63 which are second reference values.

The main control unit 1 cuts off the access count and the failure occurrence count for each access element from the date / time measuring means 11 that manages at least the date and time (the number of times when the request was made and the count information was obtained and handed over). Reaping clearing all information: Get & Reset Bu
ffered LOG), the number-of-times information set accumulating means 12 for cumulatively storing the number-of-times information set of the number-of-times information set unit 61 as statistical information for each drive and each external storage medium, the result of dividing the number of failures by the number of accesses in the number-of-times information set. The failure rate calculation means 13 for each external storage medium and each drive, and the failure rate of each drive and the external storage medium, and the number of times that the drive has exceeded the limit failure rate of 1 in the drive count information set. Number of information sets A, number of times information set of external storage medium exceeds the limit failure rate 1 of external storage medium Number of information sets B, number of times of information set of drive exceeds limit failure rate 2 of the drive In the information set number C and the number information set number D in which the external storage medium number information set exceeds the limit failure rate 2 of the external storage medium, Betting amount A, B, C, and D compare,
If C> = D> = 0, it is determined as a failure of the external storage medium and 0
If <C <D, it is determined to be a drive failure. In other cases, if A> = B> = 0, then it is determined to be an external storage medium failure, and if 0 <A <B, it is a drive failure. For example, it is determined that the corresponding specific drive or the external storage medium is the cause of the failure occurrence, and the failure cause judging means 23 compares the number of times information sets and judges the deviation.
External storage medium cleaning warning display unit 14 and drive cleaning warning display unit 16 that display the result of the determination as a warning on the information display unit, and information on the number of times having a failure rate exceeding the second critical failure rate of the external storage medium or drive. Corresponding to the set,
The external storage medium write prohibition notifying means 15 and the drive write prohibition notifying means 17, which change the setting of the new external storage medium or drive to a mode in which new writing is prohibited according to the degree of failure, and notify the prohibition mode setting, Corresponding to the above warning display, wipe the external storage medium with a soft cloth and alcohol or clean water, wipe the pickup of the drive with the standard established with a cotton swab and alcohol to perform cleaning, repair or replacement, and after that cleaning is completed After the completion of the cleaning, the external storage medium cleaning completion reporting means 18 and the drive cleaning completion reporting means 20 as means for reporting the completion from the information input unit, and in the case of the above write prohibition mode, the write prohibition mode is released and the write prohibition mode is restarted. As means for returning to the writable state, the storage medium write prohibition canceling means 19 and the drive write prohibition canceling means 2 With respect to an external storage medium or drive, to begin recording the information, and all information from the numerical information M04 of M13 in the number of the completion report at the same time the number of times the information set is cleared to 0, M1
4, M15, and M16 are configured to include a count information set clearing unit 22 that acquires and changes the latest date and time from the date and time measuring unit.

The write-protection mode of the external storage medium or drive means that when a process involving recording in the corresponding external storage medium or drive is about to occur, "the external storage medium or drive is write-protected. This means that the message such as "Please complete the cleaning process first." Is displayed and the external storage medium or drive is not written. After the cleaning process is completed and the report is issued, the write prohibition mode is canceled so that the writing can be performed again.

The information input section 2 is for the user to perform an instruction operation or data input, and may include a mouse or the like as a pointing device in some cases.

Drive 5 as an external storage medium drive
Is a number-of-times information set 51 including the number of blocks that have accessed the external storage medium and the number of times that a failure has occurred at the time of access, and an external storage medium recording / playback unit that controls reading, writing, or seeking to the external storage medium. And 52.

Details of the number-of-times information set 51 and FIG. 3 will be described. The number-of-times information set has the same number of sets as the number of drives and the number of external storage media. In the number-of-times information set, the number of access times and the number of failure occurrences are read, write, and seek. Is managed as cumulative data. The number of times information set M01 is entered by indicating a numerical value obtained by adding the number of drives and the number of external storage media. M02 to M1 as the contents of the frequency information set
6 and M02 is the serial number of the number-of-times information set,
The external storage medium ID M03 is a year / month / day / hour / minute / second as the ID in the case of an external storage medium, and is a numerical value within 3 digits in the case of a drive set.

First, the contents of the number-of-times information set regarding read will be described. The number M04 of read blocks corresponds to the number of accesses related to reads, and the number M05 of read blocks that have been automatically restored and the number M of read blocks that cannot be automatically restored.
The number 06 indicates the number of times of failure occurrence related to read, and the total number of times of these both is regarded as the number of failures. The read failure occurrence rate M07 is M05 and M06.
It is calculated by dividing the sum of and by M04 (rounding down the sixth decimal place to the fifth decimal place).

Next, the contents of the number-of-times information set regarding writing will be described. The write block number M08 corresponds to the write access number, and the automatic repaired write block number M09 indicates the number of write failure occurrences. The write failure occurrence rate M10 is obtained by dividing M09 by M08 (the sixth decimal place is rounded to the fifth decimal place).

Next, the contents of the number-of-times information set regarding seek will be described. The seek number M11 corresponds to the access number related to the seek, and the seek retry number M12 indicates the number of failure occurrences related to the seek. Seek failure rate M13
Is calculated by dividing M12 by M11 (rounding down the fifth decimal place to the fourth decimal place).

Next, the number information cumulative start date and time is provided for each read, write, and seek, and literally indicates the date and time when the cumulative number of accesses or / and the number of accesses was started, so as to avoid a quick decision in a short period, or in a long period. In order to avoid the sunkness of the occurrence of failures, it is used as a criterion for the number of times of access, clearing the number of times of failures regularly, and whether or not there is confidence in judgment.

A method of acquiring and displaying the number-of-times information set as statistical data for each external storage medium and various warning display methods as warning displays will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 2 and 6, respectively.

When a user performs a process involving access such as read, write, or seek to an external storage medium such as a magneto-optical disk, the main control unit 1 issues an access start command to the drive 5, and then the drive. A command to lock the external storage medium of the drive to prevent the external storage medium from being taken out (S11 (hereinafter, S means processing)) and a command to clear the number-of-times information set in the drive (S12). , The command (S13) for acquiring the external storage medium ID from the external storage medium is issued in this order. The external storage medium ID is identification information of the external storage medium set for each side of the external storage medium, is set for the purpose of easily selecting the external storage medium, and is external at the time of initialization of the external storage medium. Inner peripheral area M31 of the external storage medium together with the storage medium name
Written in. In this embodiment, the external storage medium ID uses the year / month / day / hour / minute / second when the external storage medium was initialized. By the command of S11, S12, and S13, the drive prohibits the removal of the external storage medium, clears the frequency information set 51 held in the drive, and the external storage medium ID
To transfer the external storage medium ID to the main control unit 1. After acquiring the external storage medium ID, the main control unit starts access to the drive, and writing of information to the external storage medium and reading of information are executed (S1).
4). In the process of this execution, the number of blocks accessed to the external storage medium, the number of times of failure, and the like are cumulatively stored as statistical information in the number-of-times information set 51 (S15).

When a series of information access to the external storage medium is completed (S16), the main control unit 1 issues an external storage medium access end command and a count information set reaping command to the drive 5. , A count information set is acquired from the drive and the count information on the drive side is cleared to 0 (S17). After acquiring the number-of-times information set from the drive, the main control unit issues a command to the drive to allow the external storage medium to be taken out and notifies the end of the command (S
18).

The main control unit 1 stores the acquired external storage medium ID in the frequency information set unit 61 stored as shown in FIG. 3 according to the acquired external storage medium ID and the frequency information set and the drive number used. It is checked whether there is a matching external storage medium ID (S19).

If there is no external storage medium with the same ID, a new count information set as the external storage medium ID is newly set in the count information set section (S20).

If there is an external storage medium with the same ID, whether the specified date and time has passed since the accumulation of the number-of-times information set of the external storage medium has started (S21), or the number of processing blocks exceeds the reference value. Whether or not (S22) is determined, and if any of them is determined, the number-of-times information set of the external storage medium is cleared. If the external storage medium with the same ID exists, the number-of-times information set of the external storage medium is further accumulated (S24).

When the number-of-times information set is newly created or cleared as described above, the numerical values from M04 to M13 are cleared to 0, and M14, M15, M1.
For the date and time of 6, the date and time measuring means acquires the year, month, day, hour, minute and second and updates the year, month, day, hour, minute and second as data. Further, these are for making judgments and clears independently for read, write and seek systems.

The necessity of clear judgment of the number-of-times information set of the external storage medium will be described. Even if the external storage medium or drive that has been operating normally for a long time begins to fail at some point, the number of access blocks (M04, M08, M11) becomes large enough not to change the failure rate. If so, the change in the failure rate cannot be detected, and even if the frequency of failures increases, the number of access blocks is hidden. For the above reason, the number-of-times information sets 611 and 612 need to be cleared regularly. The clear is performed for each external storage medium and for each drive, and access elements (read, write,
Or seek).

The clear will be described in more detail. Regarding the read, the read system information M04 to M07 of the number information set is cleared to 0, and then the current year / month / day / hour / minute / second is acquired from the date / time measuring means, and the read system number information set cumulative start date / time (M14) is obtained. Replace. Regarding lights, similarly, clear M08 to M10 to 0 and replace the date and time of M15. Similarly for seek system, M11 to M
Clear 13 to 0 and replace the date and time of M16.

The cumulative storage of the number-of-times information set in S24 will be described in detail. Data M04, M05, M06, M08, M in the number-of-times information set acquired from the drive 5
09, M11, M12 are accumulated in the corresponding data of the number-of-times-per-medium information set 611 having the same external storage medium ID, and then the failure rate of the corresponding data of the number-of-medium-times information set 611 having the same external storage medium ID. M07, M
10 and M13 are recalculated, and the per-medium count information setting section is replaced and stored.

The addition of the number-of-times information set in S20 will be described in detail below. The number M01 of external storage medium statistical information at the head of the number-of-times information setting unit 61 is increased by 1, and in the number-of-times information set corresponding to the increased number M01, the increased M01 is set to the number-of-times information set number M02.
The external storage medium ID acquired from the drive is set as an ID in M03, and the corresponding data M04, M is acquired from the number-of-times information set data acquired from the drive.
Set to 05, M06, M08, M09, M11, M12, calculate the failure occurrence rate of M07, M10, M13 and write, and measure the date and time to the cumulative start date and time of the number of times information set for each access element of M14, M15, and M16. After obtaining the year, month, day, hour, minute, second from the means and setting the same date and time, the number-of-times information set 611 is additionally set, and thereafter, the number of external storage medium statistical information is increased by 1, and M01 of the number-of-times information setting unit 61 is set.
To update.

Next, a method of displaying the number-of-times information set of the external storage medium and displaying a warning will be described. The display of the number-of-times information set is performed by displaying the number-of-times information stored in the number-of-times information set 611 for each medium on the external-storage-medium selection screen as shown in FIG. 4 displayed on the information display unit 3 to select the external storage medium to be used. Display the failure rate of the set. In the external storage medium selection screen of Fig. 4, the read failure rate is 1.2 / 10,
The display of 000 indicates the fact that the number of failure occurrences was 1.2 / 10,000 with respect to the number of block accesses. Naturally, a failure recovery process is applied to the occurrence of these failures, and it is considered that they are normally operating. Generally, it is difficult to eliminate the occurrence of a failure in a large-capacity storage medium as an external storage medium, and the occurrence of a failure is allowed within the limit reference value. In the example of FIG. 4, only the failure occurrence rate is displayed, but by displaying the number of accesses in the frequency information set, more accurate failure determination can be performed in consideration of the size of the population.

From the external storage medium selection screen of FIG. 4, it is possible to determine whether the cause of the failure is the external storage medium or the external storage medium driving device (drive). As the content of the judgment, for example, the deviation or the tendency in the failure occurrence rate of all the external storage media is read from FIG. 4, and if the failure occurrence rate of all the external storage media is large, it can be read that the drive has a cause of failure. If only a specific external storage medium has a high failure occurrence rate, it can be determined that the failure is caused by the external storage medium.

The warning display method is as follows. The main control unit checks, for example, by the date and time measuring means whether or not a certain time has elapsed for each hour (S31), and refers to the data stored in the medium count information set 611 (S32). It is determined whether or not to issue a warning for each read, write, or seek access element. If the number of accessed blocks is small, the failure rate increases even if one failure occurs. Therefore, it is first checked whether the number of accessed blocks is a constant, for example, 10,000 blocks or more (S33). Only in this case, it is checked whether the failure occurrence rate in the number-of-times information set for each external storage medium is the critical failure reference value or more (S34).

If any of the access element checks in S34 is true, a warning display screen as shown in FIG. 7 is displayed on the information display unit 3 to check, clean, repair, or replace the external storage medium or drive. Prompt (S35). In FIG. 7, confirmation characters are surrounded by rectangles, and after checking, cleaning, repairing, or replacing the corresponding external storage medium or drive, click the confirmation location with a mouse, or Alternatively, the warning screen display is set to remain without disappearing unless a specific key top of the keyboard is pressed, and this serves as a response means to various warning displays.

The meaning of having the above-described six types of times information set for each read, write, or seek (each access element) will be described. As the nature of the fault, seek seeks the address information of each block, and the occurrence of the fault is very significant compared to other reads and writes, so the occurrence of the fault has a very serious meaning. It is necessary to reduce the reference value and take measures at the initial stage of occurrence. As for the write operation, the read operation after writing is always performed at the same time as the write operation for each block, and it includes the read-only operation like read, and the operation as a drive rather than read. There are many, and first, they appear as obstacles. Therefore, it is necessary to judge the level of the fault by changing the magnitude of the fault occurrence rate according to read, write, or seek.

The timing of the reaping will be described. By retrieving the number-of-times information set from the drive and resetting the number-of-times information set on the drive side, the term “reaping” means that the number-of-times information set on the drive side is cleared. In principle, the mowing is performed when the main control unit of the information file device determines that it is necessary, but the mowing is particularly necessary at the next timing.

First, when power is cut off in the information file device, the information on the drive side disappears when the power is cut off. Therefore, the information set of the number of accesses and failures disappears unless the data is cut off. It is necessary to program the file device so that it automatically reaps when the power is turned off. Regarding power-off, it is not possible to deal with forcible power-off such as sudden power-off of the power cord, but if there is a power-off instruction and the power-off procedure is programmed by software based on it, , As a part of the procedure, it is solved by incorporating a mowing from the main controller to the drive.

Second, when a drive fails,
Since there is a possibility that the drive will be removed or replaced, the number of times information set may also disappear, and reaping is necessary.

Third, in order to secure the latest state as failure information at an early stage and to grasp the status of the failure, the number of times information set is pruned at regular intervals (for example, every 60 minutes).

The limit obstacle reference value will be described. As the critical failure reference value, reference values are set separately for the medium and the drive. Then, reference values 1 and 2 are set for each. The first is a comparatively mild limit fault reference value, which is a fault mainly caused by the adhesion of dust to the external storage medium or the drive, and is of a level at which the fault can be removed by performing simple cleaning. It is a standard value. The second reference value is when the degree of failure is fatal, and the external storage medium is defective or scratched, the pickup of the drive is defective, or the laser power is degraded. It is the standard value of the level when there is a high possibility that a failure that cannot be performed will occur or is occurring. Although the importance of the occurrence of the failure rate for each access element is described above, different values are set for read, write, or seek for the same reason. As an example, the first critical obstacle reference value is 0.1 for read, write, or seek.
3, 0.64, 0.02%, and the second critical obstacle reference value is 7.
It is 6, 3.8, 0.2%, etc., and as shown in the example, seek is the most severe because the critical obstacle reference value is set to a small numerical value.

In general, when an unrecoverable fatal failure occurs, the occurrence rate of the internal failure that can repair the failure inside the drive in advance becomes high. Therefore, the failure frequency information set is displayed on the information display unit or the fatal failure is displayed. Unpredictable fatal failure occurs by displaying a warning on the information display section when the failure rate of the external storage medium or drive exceeds the preset limit failure reference value immediately before the occurrence of a temporary failure. By urging the external storage medium or drive to be cleaned, repaired, and replaced before the occurrence of an unrecoverable fatal failure can be avoided. In addition, there are many lawsuits that were evaluated as hundreds of millions of yen due to the disappearance of information stored in external storage media, and software assets that are incomparable with hardware assets such as external storage media and drives. It is of great significance to predict the occurrence of a fatal failure at an early stage and prevent the disappearance or destruction of the accumulated information.

[0054]

According to the present invention, each time an external storage medium is accessed, the number-of-times information set of the external storage medium is acquired, and the number-of-accesses information set of the external storage medium and the number-of-failures information set are acquired. It becomes possible to memorize and periodically display the number of times information set for each external storage medium and each drive in the information display section so that a defect in the external storage medium or drive can be detected in a timely manner. It is possible to take an appropriate action based on the determination of the failure caused by the medium or the drive. In addition, the number of internal failures that can be recovered in a drive increases before a fatal failure that is generally unrecoverable occurs, and the frequency information set is displayed regularly and the failure rate is limited to external storage media. By displaying a warning when the standard value 62 or the drive limit failure standard value 63 is exceeded, it is urged to clean, repair or replace the external storage medium or drive before a fatal unrecoverable failure occurs. Therefore, a fatal obstacle can be avoided.

[0055]

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an information file device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart showing a means for acquiring the information set for each external storage medium of the information file device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing a count information set for each external storage medium stored in the count information set for each external storage medium of the information file device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a screen displaying a failure occurrence rate for each external storage medium of the information file device according to the embodiment of the present invention on the information display unit.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing stored information in an external storage medium of the information file device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a warning message display means of the information file device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a warning display screen displaying a warning message of the information file device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 main control part 11 date and time measuring means 12 frequency information set accumulating means 13 failure rate calculating means 14 external storage medium cleaning warning display means 15 external storage medium write prohibition notification means 16 drive cleaning warning display means 17 drive light prohibition notification means 18 external storage Medium cleaning completion report indicating means 19 External storage medium write prohibition canceling means 20 Drive cleaning completion reporting indicating means 21 Drive write prohibition canceling means 22 Number of times information set clearing means 23 Failure cause judging means 2 Information input section 3 Information display section 5 External storage medium Drive device (drive) 51 Number of times information (inside the drive) 6 Internal storage unit 61 Number of times information setting unit 611 Number of times information set for each external storage medium 612 Number of times information set for each drive 62 Limit limit value for external storage medium 63 Limit for drive Obstacle reference value M01 times Number of sets of information set M02 Number of sets of information set M03 External storage medium ID or drive number M04 Number of read blocks (corresponding to the number of accesses) M05 Number of read blocks that were able to recover from failures (corresponding to a part of the number of failures) M06 Read failure Number of occurrences (corresponds to a part of the number of failures) M07 Read failure rate M08 Number of write blocks (corresponds to the number of accesses) M09 Number of read blocks backed up (corresponds to the number of failures) M10 Write failure rate M11 Number of seeks (number of accesses) M12 Number of seek retries (corresponds to the number of failures) M13 Seek failure rate M14 Read start number information set cumulative start date and time M15 Write count information set cumulative start date and time M16 Seek count information set cumulative start date and time M31 External storage medium Header information such as ID 32 search information M33 image information

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. An information input unit, an information display unit,
In an information file device having an internal storage unit for accessing writing information to an external storage medium, the number of times of access to each block, which is a handling unit of the external storage medium, by access element and the access generated in the process of performing the access. The failure occurrence frequency for each element is stored in the main control unit in the information file device, which is obtained from the external storage medium drive unit and is cumulatively managed as a frequency information set for each external storage medium and each external storage medium drive unit. The number of times information set accumulating means, and the result of dividing the number of times of failure for each access element in the number of times information set by the number of times of access for each access element, as the failure rate for each access element, for each external storage medium and each external storage medium An information file device comprising: a failure rate calculation unit that calculates for each drive device. 2. A date and time measuring means for measuring the date and time,
The failure rate for each access element of the number-of-times information set in the external storage medium is calculated at regular time intervals obtained from the date / time measuring means, and any failure rate for each access element corresponds to the first external An external storage medium cleaning warning display means for displaying, on the information display unit, a warning prompting the user to clean the external storage medium that exceeds the reference value when the storage medium limit failure reference value is exceeded. 1. The information file device described in 1. 3. A date and time measuring means for measuring the date and time,
The failure rate for each access element of the number-of-times information set of the external storage medium is calculated at regular time intervals obtained from the date and time measuring means, and any failure rate for each access element corresponds to the second external storage. When the medium limit failure reference value or more, the external storage medium that exceeds the reference value is changed to a new write prohibition mode, and the information display unit is notified of the change to the prohibition mode. The information file device according to claim 1, further comprising: notifying means. 4. A date and time measuring means for measuring the date and time,
The failure rate for each access element of the number-of-times information set of the external storage medium driving device is calculated at regular time intervals obtained from the date and time measuring means, and any failure rate for each access element corresponds to the first failure rate. External storage medium drive cleaning warning display means for notifying the information display unit of a warning prompting cleaning of the external storage medium drive exceeding the reference value if the external storage medium drive limit failure reference value is exceeded. The information filing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein: 5. A date and time measuring means for measuring the date and time,
The failure rate for each access element of the number-of-times information set of the external storage medium driving device is calculated at regular time intervals obtained from the date and time measuring means, and any failure rate for each access element corresponds to the second failure rate. When the external storage medium drive device limit failure reference value or more is exceeded, the external storage medium drive device that exceeds the reference value is changed to a new write prohibition mode and the information display unit is notified of the change to the write prohibition mode. 2. The information according to claim 1, further comprising: an external storage medium drive device write prohibition notification means, and an external storage medium drive device repair warning display means for displaying a warning prompting repair or replacement on the information display section. File device. 6. An external storage medium cleaning completion reporting means for reporting completion of cleaning of the external storage medium after an external storage medium cleaning warning display or an external storage medium write prohibition notification by an information input unit, and the cleaning completion report for the number of times. Corresponding number of times in the information set part The number of times information set clearing means for clearing the number of times of access and the number of failures for each access element in the information set, and updating the cumulative start date and time for each access element, and the corresponding external storage medium When the mode for prohibiting writing is set, the external storage medium write prohibition canceling means for canceling the subsequent write prohibition mode for the corresponding external storage medium by the external storage medium cleaning completion report is provided. The information file device according to any one of claims 1 to 5, which is characterized. 7. An external storage medium drive cleaning warning display,
Or an external storage medium drive cleaning completion report means for reporting completion of repair, replacement, or cleaning of the external storage medium drive after the external storage medium drive write prohibition notification, and the number of times indicated by the cleaning completion report. The number of times information set clearing means for clearing the number of times of access and the number of failures for each access element in the number of times information set of the information set section and updating the cumulative start date and time for each access element, and the corresponding external storage medium drive device External storage medium drive device write prohibition canceling means for canceling the subsequent write prohibition mode to the external storage medium drive device by the external storage medium drive device cleaning completion report when the mode is set to the subsequent write prohibition mode The information file device according to any one of claims 1 to 7, further comprising: 8. An external storage medium and an external storage medium drive device, wherein in the number-of-times information set, a failure rate obtained by dividing a failure frequency by an access frequency is calculated for each access element, and all external storage media and all external storage devices are calculated. By comparing the failure rate for each access element in the storage medium drive, determine whether the cause of the failure is due to a specific external storage medium, or a specific external storage medium drive, The information file device according to claim 1, further comprising: failure cause determining means for clarifying a main cause of the failure.