Fusion-io Assigned Four Patents

Storage using progressive RAID

Fusion-io, Inc., Salt Lake City, UT, has been assigned a patent (8,412,979) developed by four co-inventors for an "apparatus, system, and method for storage using progressive raid."

The co-inventors are David Flynn, Sandy, UT, David Atkisson, Draper, UT, Jonathan Thatcher, Liberty Lake, WA, and Michael Zappe, Arvada, CO.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for storage with progressive redundant array of independent drives (RAID). A storage request receiver module, a striping module, a parity-mirror module, and a parity progression module are included. The storage request receiver module receives a request to store data of a file or of an object. The striping module calculates a stripe pattern for the data. The stripe pattern includes one or more stripes, and each stripe includes a set of N data segments. The striping module writes the N data segments to N storage devices. Each data segment is written to a separate storage device within a set of storage devices assigned to the stripe. The parity-mirror module writes a set of N data segments to one or more parity-mirror storage devices within the set of storage devices. The parity progression module calculates a parity data segment on each parity-mirror device in response to a storage consolidation operation, and stores the parity data segments. The storage consolidation operation is conducted to recover storage space and/or data on a parity-mirror storage device."

The patent application was filed on July 13, 2011 (13/182,315).

Managing concurrent storage requests

Fusion-io, Inc., Salt Lake City, UT, has been assigned a patent (8,412,904) developed by David Flynn, Sandy, UT, Jonathan Thatcher, Liberty Lake, WA., and Michael Zappe, Arvada, CO, for an "apparatus, system, and method for managing concurrent storage requests."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed for managing concurrent storage requests. A multiple storage request receiver module is configured to recognize at least two storage requests from clients for data in storage devices of a storage device set. The at least two concurrent storage requests address a common portion of data. A sequencer module is configured to determine a first storage request and a second storage request from the concurrent storage requests by way of selection criteria. The sequencer module is configured to ensure completion of the first storage request prior to executing the second storage request by receiving an acknowledgment from each of the storage devices of the storage device set that received portions of the first storage request. The portions may be sent to the storage devices to execute the first storage request."

The patent application was filed on March 29, 2011 (13/075,000).

Managing solid-state storage media

Fusion-io, Inc., Salt Lake City, UT, has been assigned a patent (8,380,915) developed by Robert Wood, Niwot, CO, Jea Hyun, South Jordan, UT, and Hairong Sun, Superior, CO, for an "apparatus, system, and method for managing solid-state storage media."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed to manage solid-state storage media by determining one or more configuration parameters for the solid-state storage media. A media characteristic module references one or more storage media characteristics for a set of storage cells of solid-state storage media. A configuration parameter module determines a configuration parameter for the set of storage cells based on the one or more storage media characteristics. A storage cell configuration module configures the set of storage cells to use the determined configuration parameter."

The patent application was filed on July 22, 2011 (13/189,402).

Storage space recovery in solid-state storage

Fusion-io, Salt Lake City, UT, has been assigned a patent (8,402,201) developed by six co-inventors for an "apparatus, system, and method for storage space recovery in solid-state storage."

The co-inventors are David Flynn, Sandy, UT, Bert Lagerstedt, Pleasant Grove, UT, John Strasser, Syracuse, UT, Jonathan Thatcher, Lehi, UT, John Walker, Sandy, UT, and Michael Zappe, Wheat Ridge, CO.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for storage space recovery in solid-state storage. A sequential storage module sequentially writes data packets in a storage division. The storage division includes a portion of a solid-state storage. The data packets are derived from an object. The data packets are sequentially stored by order of processing. A storage division selection module selects a storage division for recovery. A data recovery module reads valid data packets from the storage division selected for recovery, queues the valid data packets with other data packets to be written sequentially, and updates an index with a new physical address of the valid data. The index includes a mapping of physical addresses of data packets to object identifiers. A storage division recovery module marks the storage division selected for recovery as available for sequentially writing data packets in response to completing copying valid data from the storage division."

The patent application was filed on Dec. 6, 2007 (11/952,101).