JPS63158624A - Test system for file backup device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To securely detect a fault by causing a test pattern to contain data which changes every prescribed period. CONSTITUTION:For writing test data in a backup medium, the date of that day is written in a date YYMMDD. If the date YYMMDD which has been read agrees with the date of that day on reading test data from the backup medium, it is judged that normal operation has been executed. Consequently, the fault that writing is not executed in the medium of the file backup device can securely be detected.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention is a file backup device testing method for early detection of a failure in a file backup device installed in a data processing device with a fixed disk or the like.

[Conventional technology]

In a data processing device using a fixed disk, data that is frequently used in business is generally stored on the fixed disk. However, if the fixed disk device fails for some reason, this data may be lost. A file backup device such as a cartridge magnetic tape device or a streaming type magnetic tape device is used as a data recovery measure in such an emergency.

The data in the fixed disk device is destroyed due to unforeseen circumstances.
The loss of stored important data is often a serious problem, and file backup is an important matter that should be considered in advance for system operation. Such an important file backup device needs to be able to reliably save data in case of an emergency.
Reliability of file backup is very important.

On the other hand, unless the disk device fails, the data saved in the file backup device is not used at all, so even if the file backup device fails, there is no problem if the file backup device is repaired before the disk device fails. Detecting failures of file backup devices at an early stage is extremely effective in increasing reliability.

Even if the file backup device is out of order, as long as the disk device does not break down, the behavior will appear to be exactly the same as if the file backup device was not out of order, and no errors will be reported, so the failure condition can be overlooked for a long time. When a disk failure actually occurs, it can become a big problem. This problem can be solved if the system operator runs the diagnostic program regularly, but since it requires special operations, it cannot be expected to be done reliably in a short period of time.

Therefore, the following file backup device testing method has conventionally been adopted. Before starting data backup to the actual file backup device, write the test pattern data on the backup medium that will actually be used from now on, and then read it and compare it.
Verify that both write and read operations function correctly. If an abnormality in operation is detected, the abnormality is notified and no evacuation operation is performed, and actual data evacuation is performed only if the operation is normal.

The automatic test method of this file backup device allows
The presence or absence of failures was always tested at the time of saving the file data, greatly improving reliability.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

However, the automatic testing method described above has the following drawbacks. The following drawbacks are caused by two points: the same test pattern data is used every time, and the same backup medium is used repeatedly.

In other words, if a failure occurs that causes the file backup device to completely stop writing to the medium, even if the first write operation of the file backup device test was not performed, the medium may If the medium was used, the previous test pattern data remains, so the comparison result will be normal when checking when reading.
The device will operate as if there is no failure, and no abnormality report will be made.

One way to solve this problem is to delete all test pattern data after checking the reading, but if the medium is a tape medium such as a cartridge tape, extra time is required for rewinding. Not only this, but also the number of times the medium is used in the unwinding portion increases, which results in shortening the life of the medium, which is not a practical method.

[Means b for solving the problem]

The present invention provides a file backup device test method in which test data is written to a file backup medium, and then the test data is read from the medium, and the written contents and read contents are compared. It is characterized by containing data that changes.

〔Example〕

Next, the present invention will be explained with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a series of operations when saving file data in an embodiment of the present invention. That is, it shows the processing flow of a file backup device test method in a system configured with a cartridge magnetic tape device 3 as a file backup device.

As shown in FIG. 1, when attempting to save data in the fixed disk device 2, after setting a backup medium in the cartridge magnetic tape device 3, write test data to the medium that will actually be used. Once this is done, rewind the media tape and read the written data to check if it is working properly. If the fixed disk device 2 is operating normally, the data in the fixed disk device 2 is saved, and if the operation is abnormal, a report on the device information is output.

At this time, examples of test data used are shown in Figure 3 (a) and (
Shown in b). FIG. 3(a) shows simple test data, which is configured so that an ON10 FF test can be performed for each bit. The test data in Figure 3(b) tests all 256 combinations of data, and you only have to select one of them (in the case of an actual cartridge magnetic tape device, the data is arranged in a bit serial format) (However, for convenience of explanation, it is expressed in units of bytes.)

In any of the above cases, YY at the end of the test data
The date information shown in MMDD is included, making it possible to distinguish it from test data from the previous day. This allows testing in the case where the writing function is completely impaired. In other words, when writing test data to the backup medium, write the current date in YYMMDD, and when reading test data from the backup medium, make sure that the read date YYMMDD matches the current date. If so, it is determined that normal operation was performed. However, if the main test is conducted at the turn of the day, that is, from 23:59 to 00:00, the writing date and reading date will be different, so the date and month of writing to the backup medium will be different. It is necessary to memorize the date YYMMDD and compare it with the data when checking when reading.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the year, month, and day YYMMDD are used as data that changes daily, but there are various other data such as data that has been processed in some way based on the year, month, and day, or that has the time added, or simply a continuous number. The present invention can also be implemented using such data.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, the present invention has the advantage that by including data that changes every predetermined period in the test pattern, it is possible to reliably detect failures in which writing to the medium of the file backup device is not performed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart when saving disk data in a data processing device implementing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a system to which the embodiment shown in FIG. 1 is applied, and FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an example of test data used in the example shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 1... Data processing device, 2... Fixed disk device,
3... Cartridge magnetic tape device.

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a file backup device test method in which test data is written to a file backup medium, the test data is read from the medium, and the written content and read content are compared, the test data includes data that changes every predetermined period. A file backup device test method characterized by comprising: