Autonomous event logging for drive failure analysis
View Patent ↗A method and system for providing autonomous event logging and retrieval for failure analysis. In one implementation, storage device firmware monitors and records events (e.g., storage device errors and/or failures) to the storage device flash in substantially real time from power on of the storage device to power off. Additionally, diagnostic data relating to an event, including a time stamp and storage device environmental conditions are recorded. The logged event data may be utilized to streamline failure analysis by determining whether the storage device failed and if so, when the storage device failed and what the conditions of the storage device were at the time of the failure. Such information may be used for failure, warranty, integrator, and/or troubleshooting analysis.
1. A method comprising:
autonomously detecting, via a storage device, an event regarding performance of the storage device; and
autonomously recording event-based diagnostic data for the detected event to a storage medium the storage device in response to the autonomous detection, wherein the storage medium storing the event-based diagnostic data is separate from another storage medium of the storage device that stores user data.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the event-based diagnostic data includes a timestamp.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the event-based diagnostic data further includes an error code describing the detected event and raw data corresponding to performance of the storage device at the time of the detected event.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the raw data includes monitored environmental conditions of the storage device.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the event-based diagnostic data is recorded from power on of the storage device to power off.
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
outputting a diagnostics log presenting the event-based diagnostic data.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the storage medium storing the event-based diagnostic data is flash memory.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the event-based diagnostics data is recorded in substantially real time.
9. A system comprising:
a storage device with memory storing firmware instructions for autonomously detecting an event regarding performance of the storage device and autonomously recording event-based diagnostic data for the detected event to flash memory responsive to the autonomous detection; and
a host device communicatively coupled to the storage device wherein the firmware instructions enable the storage device to autonomously record the event-based diagnostic data without receiving a command from the host device.
10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the event-based diagnostic data further includes an error code describing the detected event and raw data corresponding to the performance of the storage device at the time of the detected event.
11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the raw data includes monitored environmental conditions of the storage device.
12. The system of claim 9 , wherein the detected event is a storage device detected event.
13. The system of claim 9 , wherein the event-based diagnostic data is recorded from power on of the storage device to power off.
14. A tangible processor-readable storage medium encoding a processor executable program for executing a process, the process comprising:
autonomously detecting, via a storage device, an event regarding performance of the storage device; and
autonomously recording event-based diagnostic data for the detected event to memory in the storage device responsive to the autonomous detection without receiving a command from a communicatively coupled host device.
15. The tangible processor-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the event-based diagnostic data includes a timestamp.
16. The tangible processor-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein the event-based diagnostic data further includes an error code describing the storage device detected event and raw data corresponding to the performance of the storage device at the time of the detected event.
17. The tangible processor-readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein the raw data includes monitored environmental conditions of the storage device.
18. The tangible processor-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein the event-based diagnostic data is recorded from power on of the storage device to power off.
19. The method of claim 1 , wherein the storage device performs the recording operation without receiving a command from a host, and without receiving a command from an interface.