Fusion-io Assigned Two Patents

Caching data on SSD
Fusion-io, Inc., Salt Lake City, UT, has been assigned a patent (8,719,501) developed by seven co-inventors for an “apparatus, system, and method for caching data on a solid-state storage device.”

The co-inventors are David Flynn, Sandy, UT, John Strasser, Syracuse, UT, Jonathan Thatcher, Liberty Lake, WA, David Atkisson, Draper, UT, Michael Zappe, Arvada, CO, Joshua Aune, South Jordan, UT, and Kevin B. Vigor, Salt Lake City, UT.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for caching data on a solid-state storage device. The solid-state storage device maintains metadata pertaining to cache operations performed on the solid-state storage device, as well as storage operations of the solid-state storage device. The metadata indicates what data in the cache is valid, as well as information about what data in the nonvolatile cache has been stored in a backing store. A backup engine works through units in the nonvolatile cache device and backs up the valid data to the backing store. During grooming operations, the groomer determines whether the data is valid and whether the data is discardable. Data that is both valid and discardable may be removed during the grooming operation. The groomer may also determine whether the data is cold in determining whether to remove the data from the cache device. The cache device may present to clients a logical space that is the same size as the backing store. The cache device may be transparent to the clients.”

The patent application was filed on Sept. 8, 2010 (12/877,971).

Reconfiguring array of storage elements
Fusion-Io, Salt Lake City, has been assigned a patent (8,738,991) developed by seven co-inventors for an “apparatus, system, and method for reconfiguring an array of storage elements.”

The co-inventors are David Flynn, Sandy, UT, Jonathan Thatcher, Liberty Lake, WA, Joshua Aune, Draper, UT, Jeremy Fillingim, Salt Lake City, UT, Bill Inskeep, West Valley City, UT, John Strasser, Syracuse, UT, and Kevin Vigor, Salt Lake City, UT.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Apparatuses, systems, and methods are disclosed for reconfiguring an array of storage elements. A storage element error module is configured to determine that one or more storage elements in an array of storage elements are in error. An array of storage elements stores a first ECC block and first parity data generated from the first ECC block. A data reconfiguration module is configured to generate a second ECC block comprising at least a portion of data of a first ECC block. A new configuration storage module is configured to store a second ECC block and associated second parity data on fewer storage elements than a number of storage elements in an array.”

The patent application was filed on May 31, 2013 (13/907,479).