Self-Adaptive Disk Arrays

Abstract

We present a disk array organization that adapts itself to successive disk failures. When all disks are operational, all data are mirrored on two disks. Whenever a disk fails, the array reorganizes itself, by selecting a disk containing redundant data and replacing these data by their exclusive or (XOR) with the other copy of the data contained on the disk that failed. This will protect the array against any single disk failure until the failed disk gets replaced and the array can revert to its original condition. Hence data will remain protected against the successive failures of up to one half of the original number of disks, provided that no critical disk failure happens while the array is reorganizing itself. As a result, our scheme achieves the same access times as a mirrored organization under normal operational conditions while having a much lower likelihood of loosing data under abnormal conditions. In addition, it tolerates much longer repair times than mirrored disk arrays.