Quality of service for data storage volumes
The invention classifies volumes (e.g., file systems or LUNs) of a data storage system according to application requirements and allocates space for the volumes on storage devices (e.g., hard disk drives) accordingly. A person such as an IT administrator configures the volumes specifying size, type (e.g., file system or SAN LUN), and priority (e.g., high, medium, low, or archive). The host schedules I/O requests to the storage devices in priority queues using the volume definition to match the application requirements and reduce storage seek time between volumes of different priorities. The host also allocates high performance bands of the storage devices to high performance applications and lower performance bands to lower performance applications. In this manner, the data storage system places data on the band of the storage device that best supports its performance needs.
1. A data storage system for processing I/O requests, comprising:
a user interface accepting a priority for each of a plurality of volumes, wherein each volume is a LUN or file system;
a data storage subsystem, including a zone bit recorded disk drive; and
a host adapted to allocate a performance band on the zone bit recorded disk drive in the data storage subsystem for each volume, receive I/O requests, rearrange the I/O requests into queues for each priority, tag each I/O request with the priority of its volume, selects batch of I/O requests by priority from the queues, and send the I/O requests to the data storage subsystem by priority batches for execution.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the user interface is a Web-based graphical user interface communicating with a management controller.
3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the user interface allows a person to define each volume by assigning priority, as NAS or SAN, and of a certain capacity.
4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the priority is high, medium, low, or archive.
5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the data storage subsystem includes performance bands on a zone bit recorded disk drive, wherein the high priority I/O requests go on an outer band.
6. The system of claim 4 , wherein the data storage subsystem includes performance bands on a zone bit recorded disk drive, wherein the low priority I/O requests go on an inner band.
7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the host selects I/O requests from each of a high, medium, low, and archive queue.
8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the host tags the I/O requests with their priority and transmits them as a batch to the data storage subsystem in order of priority.
9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the data storage subsystem retains the I/O requests in order of priority.
10. The system of claim 8 , further comprising another host sending I/O requests to the data storage subsystem, wherein the data storage subsystem retains the I/O requests in order of priority.
11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the I/O request bandwidth of the data storage subsystem is allocated by priority.
12. The system of claim 1 , wherein each priority is assigned a minimum percentage of I/O requests.
13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the I/O request bandwidth of the data storage subsystem is allocated by priority and by weighting each of the volumes.
14. The system of claim 1 , wherein the boundary of each performance band aligns with a data zone boundary on the zone bit recorded disk drive.
15. The system of claim 1 , wherein the boundary of each performance band does not align on a data zone boundary on the zone bit recorded disk drive.
16. A method of processing I/O requests in a data storage system, comprising;
accepting a priority for each of a plurality of volumes, wherein each volume is a LUN or a file system′;
allocating a plurality of performance bands ‘of a zone bit recorded disk drive’ according to the priorities;
receiving I/O requests;
rearranging the I/O requests into a queue for each priority,
selecting a batch of I/O requests from the queues; and
executing the batch of I/O requests.
17. A method of processing I/O requests in a data storage system, comprising:
providing a plurality of performance bands for a zone bit recorded disk drive;
assigning a priority to each of a plurality of volumes;
allocating a performance band for each volume;
receiving I/O requests;
a rearranging the I/O requests into a queue for each priority,
tagging I/O requests by priority;
selecting a batch of I/O requests from the queues; and
sending the I/O requests by priority batch to the data storage subsystem for execution.
18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the boundary of each performance band aligns with a data zone boundary of the zone bit recorded disk drive.
19. The method of claim 17 , wherein the boundary of each performance band does not align on a data zone boundary of the zone bit recorded disk drive.
20. A data storage system for processing I/O requests, comprising:
a user interface accepting a priority for each at a plurality of volumes;
a data storage subsystem; and
a host adapted to allocate a performance band in the data storage subsystem for each volume, receive I/O requests, rearrange the I/O requests into queues for each priority, tag each I/O request with the priority of its volume, select a batch of I/O requests by priority from the queues, and send the I/O requests to the data storage subsystem by priority batches for execution, wherein the data storage subsystem includes performance bands on a zone bit recorded disk drive, wherein the higher priority I/O requests execute on the outer bands.
21. A data storage system for processing I/O requests, comprising:
a user interface accepting a priority for each of a plurality of volumes;
a data storage subsystem; and
a host adapted to allocate a performance band in the data storage subsystem for each volume, receive I/O request, rearrange the I/O requests into queues for each priority, tag each I/O request with the priority of its volume, select a batch of I/O requests by priority from the queues, and send the I/ 0 requests to the data storage subsystem by priority batches for execution, wherein the data storage subsystem includes performance bands on a zone bit recorded disk drive, wherein the lower priority I/O requests execute on the inner bands.
22. A data storage system for processing I/O requests, comprising:
a user interface accepting a priority for each of a plurality of volumes;
a data storage subsystem; and
a host adapted to allocate a performance band in the data storage subsystem for each volume, receive I/O requests, rearrange the I/O requests into queues for each priority, tag each I/O request with the priority of its volume, select a batch of I/O requests by priority from the queues, and send the I/O requests to the data storage subsystem by priority batches for execution, wherein a boundary of each performance band aligns with a data zone boundary on a zone bit recorded disk drive.