How reliable are parallel disk systems when energy-saving schemes are involved?

• Main Authors: Shu Yin, Xiaojun Ruan, Manzanares, A., Xiao Qin
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: cluster; Disk drives; Energy conservation; Energy efficiency; Energy management; Energy storage; enery-saving; Frequency; Large-scale systems; MAID; PDC; Power system management; Power system modeling; Power system reliability; reliability
• ISSN: 1552-5244; 2168-9253
• DOI: 10.1109/CLUSTR.2009.5289184

Many energy conservation techniques have been proposed to achieve high energy efficiency in disk systems. Unfortunately, growing evidence shows that energy-saving schemes in disk drives usually have negative impacts on storage systems. Existing reliability models are inadequate to estimate reliability of parallel disk systems equipped with energy conservation techniques. To solve this problem, we propose a mathematical model - called MINT - to evaluate the reliability of a parallel disk system where energy-saving mechanisms are implemented. In this paper, we focus on modeling the reliability impacts of two well-known energy-saving techniques - the Popular Disk Concentration technique (PDC) and the Massive Array of Idle Disks (MAID). We started this research by investigating how PDC and MAID affect the utilization and power-state transition frequency of each disk in a parallel disk system. We then model the annual failure rate of each disk as a function of the disk's utilization, power state transition frequency as well as operating temperature, because these parameters are key reliability-affecting factors in addition to disk ages. Next, the reliability of a parallel disk system can be derived from the annual failure rate of each disk in the parallel disk system. Finally, we used MINT to study the reliability of a parallel disk system equipped with the PDC and MAID techniques. Experimental results show that PDC is more reliable than MAID when disk workload is low. In contrast, the reliability of MAID is higher than that of PDC under relatively high I/O load.