JPH1165775A - Control method for magnetic disk controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To effectively use plural magnetic disk devices (HD) to attain a fast access to the data by transferring the data which are accessed by an application to be used to another HD that has high access performance. SOLUTION: An HD controller 6 stores the magnetic disk performance information 7 for all HDs which are connected to an HD bus 9 and starts an application A to decide whether the performance of the HD to be accessed by the application A has the highest precedence based on the information 7. If the relevant HD does not have the highest performance and also all data can be stored in an HD that has higher performance, the data are transferred to the HD having higher performance and the mount information 8 is updated as long as the operation of the application A is not affected. If all data cannot be stored in the HD having higher performance, the data are transferred to another HD and the storage capacity is secured for the data to be accessed by the application A as long as the data which are not related to the application A can be driven out of the HD that has the highest performance.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a magnetic disk controller used in a workstation system or the like, and more particularly to a magnetic disk controller for controlling a plurality of magnetic disk devices having a difference in access performance.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, this kind of magnetic disk controller has been used in a magnetic disk device (hereinafter referred to as HD) for the purpose of speeding up disk access. For example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 6-236241, when an instruction for an area to be cached is issued from the computer side to speed up disk access, the HD moves the magnetic head to a designated data area on the magnetic disk medium. The data is read out and stored in the cache memory, and even if the computer accesses the area stored in the cache memory, the magnetic disk controller transfers the data in the cache memory to the computer without moving the magnetic head of the HD. A technique for transferring is disclosed.

[0003]

In the conventional magnetic disk controller described above, the path of the data referred to by the application is set in advance in the application, and the relationship between the data path and the device for creating the file system is also determined. Since the setting is made by the mount information, the low-speed magnetic disk device referred to by the application cannot be changed to the high-speed magnetic disk device unless these are reset.

[0004] In other words, despite the fact that there is a high-speed magnetic disk drive, when an application that accesses data originally in the low-speed magnetic disk drive is started, there is a drawback that high-speed access is not possible.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a magnetic disk controller which can speed up data access while effectively utilizing a plurality of magnetic disk devices having a difference in access performance.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A magnetic disk controller according to the present invention is a method for controlling a magnetic disk controller for controlling a plurality of magnetic disk devices having different access performances. When stored on a disk device,
The data is moved to another magnetic disk device having higher access performance than the magnetic disk device.

Next, when data to be accessed by an application to be used is moved from a predetermined magnetic disk device to another magnetic disk device having higher access performance, the data is transferred to all magnetic disk devices connected to the bus. When the performance information is detected and stored, it is detected from the performance information whether or not the performance rank of the magnetic disk device accessed by the predetermined application is the highest, and the performance rank of the magnetic disk device accessed by the application is the highest. For all other cases, check whether all the data can be stored in a magnetic disk device with higher access performance. If all the data can be stored, move the data to a higher-performance magnetic disk device and mount it. Directory name and file system creation And updates the cement information.

When data accessed by an application to be used cannot be moved to a magnetic disk device having high access performance based on the storage capacity, data irrelevant to the application is moved to another magnetic disk device. It is characterized in that whether or not it is possible is checked, and if the eviction is possible, the data is moved to another magnetic disk device and the mount information is updated.

Further, the present invention is characterized in that at least the access performance, the access performance rank, and the storage capacity of all the connected magnetic disk devices are recognized as the performance information of the magnetic disk devices.

The magnetic disk controller of the present invention moves data accessed by an application to be used to an HD having higher access performance and also updates mount information. Therefore, manual copying of data and resetting of a data path are performed. There is no need to perform this operation, and even if the application to be used changes, this operation is performed each time, so that the effect can be expected constantly. In addition, data accessed by an application that is used less frequently can be stored in an HD with a low access performance, and the HD with a low access performance can be effectively used.

[0011]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining an embodiment of a workstation system using a magnetic disk controller according to the present invention. Referring to FIG. 1, this workstation system includes a central processing unit 2, an HD
A workstation 1 including an I / F board 3 and a low-speed built-in HD 4 and a high-speed external HD 5;
・ I / F board 3 and built-in HD4 and external HD5 are H
It is connected via a D bus 9. The central processing unit 2 processes the mount information 8 and the application data path information 10, and the HD / I / F board 3 includes a magnetic disk controller 6 with a built-in HD 4 and an external HD 5.
And HD performance information 7 for detecting the performance of all the HDs.

Generally, as an element representing the “performance” of HD,
Although there are a rotational speed, a recording density, a seek speed, and the like of the magnetic disk, the “performance” in this embodiment means “access performance”, and the external HD is more than the built-in HD 4.
5 has higher access performance. Further, in the present embodiment, an example will be described in which two units, the built-in HD 4 and the external HD 5 are mounted, but the present invention is not necessarily limited to this number.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the structure of the HD performance information 6 of FIG. 1, and shows all HD connected to the HD bus.
When the workstation system starts up, the magnetic disk controller 6
The device names and performance ranks of all the HDs connected to the HD are detected and stored.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the structure of the mount information 8 shown in FIG. 1 and shows the relationship between a device for creating a file system and a directory to be mounted. In the figure, the directory / ho is stored in the built-in HD4 (low speed).
Mount meA / data and external HD5 (high speed)
Indicates that the directory / homeB / data is mounted.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a configuration of the application data path information 10 shown in FIG. 1, and shows a relationship between each application and a data path for accessing them. In the figure, an application A represents accessing data in a directory / homeA / data, and an application B represents accessing data in a directory / homeB / data, and is usually set on an application.

Next, the operation of the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

Referring to FIG. 2, first, the workstation system is started, and the HD controller 6
The magnetic disk performance information 7 is detected and stored for all HDs connected to the bus 9 (S101). Subsequently, the application A is started (S102), and the magnetic disk controller 6 detects from the HD performance information 7 whether or not the performance rank of the HD accessed by the application A is the highest (S103).

Here, if the performance rank of the HD accessed by the application A is the highest, the processing is terminated as it is. If not, it is checked whether all the data can be stored in the higher-performance HD (S
104). And if you can store all the data,
When there is no influence on the operation of the application A, the data is moved to a higher-performance HD (S107), and the mount information 8 is updated (S108).

On the other hand, if all the data cannot be stored in S104, it is checked whether data irrelevant to the application A (access data of the application B in this embodiment) can be evicted from the HD having the highest performance (S105). If the data can be ejected, the data is moved to another HD (S109), and the storage capacity of the data accessed by the application A is secured. Then, the mount information 8 is updated (S110), and the process returns to the determination box of S104 again to execute the processing.

Thus, any application can change the application data path information 10 without changing it.
The highest-performance HD can be accessed. However, if none of the determination boxes in S104 and S105 is possible (No), an error message is output (S106), and the series of processing ends.

[0022]

As described above, according to the present invention, the data to be accessed can be moved to the HD having the highest access performance even when any application is started, so that the data access to the HD is accelerated and the entire system is started. However, higher access performance can be obtained.

Further, even if data accessed by an application that is used less frequently is stored in an HD having a low access performance, the data to be accessed can be moved to the HD having the highest access performance by starting the application. There is an effect that it is possible to effectively use the HD having a low level.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an embodiment of a workstation system using a magnetic disk controller according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a flow of a process according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing details of a configuration of HD performance information 6 shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing details of a configuration of mount information 8 shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is application data path information 1 shown in FIG.
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating details of a configuration of a zero.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 workstation 2 central processing unit 3 HD / I / F board 4 built-in HD 5 external HD 6 magnetic disk controller 7 magnetic disk performance information 8 mount information 9 HD bus 10 application data path information

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A method for controlling a magnetic disk controller for controlling a plurality of magnetic disk devices having different access performances, wherein data to be accessed by an application to be used is stored in a predetermined magnetic disk device.
A method of controlling a magnetic disk controller, wherein the data is moved to another magnetic disk device having higher access performance than the magnetic disk device. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein data to be accessed by an application to be used is moved from a predetermined magnetic disk device to another magnetic disk device having higher access performance. Performance information for all the magnetic disk devices connected to the bus is detected and stored, and from the performance information, it is detected whether or not the performance order of the magnetic disk device accessed by a predetermined application is the highest, and the application Except when the performance rank of the magnetic disk device to be accessed is the highest, it is further examined whether or not all the data can be stored in the magnetic disk device having higher access performance.
A method for controlling a magnetic disk controller, which moves data to a higher-performance magnetic disk device and updates a directory name to be mounted and mount information for creating a file system. 3. The method of controlling a magnetic disk controller according to claim 1, wherein when the data to be accessed by the application to be used cannot be moved to a magnetic disk device having high access performance judging from the storage capacity. A magnetic disk, which checks whether data irrelevant to the data can be moved to another magnetic disk device, and if it can be evicted, moves the data to another magnetic disk device and updates the mount information. How to control the controller. 4. The method of controlling a magnetic disk controller according to claim 1, wherein the performance information of the magnetic disk device includes at least access performance, access performance rank, and storage capacity of all connected magnetic disk devices. A method for controlling a magnetic disk controller, wherein