Dot Hill Assigned Patent

Dot Hill Systems Corp. has patented a method for safeguarding data and preserving cache in the event of main power loss.

Critical information stored in volatile memory, including cached write data and metadata, must be preserved in the event of main power loss. Volatile memory stores this data as long as the memory is powered, but does not retain the data if main power is lost for any reason. When main power loss occurs, valuable data is transferred from volatile memory to the non-volatile memory of the computer memory system. This transfer of data is referred to as a memory flush operation.

Dot Hill’s 91st U.S. patent, numbered 8,510,598, provides a method to reduce power usage in computer memory systems during volatile memory flush operations. It reduces power required for a memory flush operation by selectively providing power to certain computer components at certain times, and not to others. By reducing this power requirement, a smaller power source such as a super-capacitor may be used by the computer memory system.

"Dot Hill AssuredSAN and AssuredSAN Pro systems are engineered to deliver exceptional reliability and 99.999% data availability," said Ken Day, CTO, Dot Hill. "IT managers are concerned with the preservation of all data within the storage system, including the state of the cache memory in the event of a failure. This latest innovation allows recovery of all stored data if the main power is lost. As Dot Hill grows closer to the 100-patent mark, we continue to deliver innovation that truly matters to users."