Dot Hill Systems Corp., maker of unified virtual storage and SAN storage solutions, has been granted a patent for a product that “significantly increases the likelihood of non-stop storage system operation in high-temperature environments.”
This is Dot Hill‘s 76th U.S. patent (7,861,113). The patent enables Dot Hill software to use heat sensors to trigger responses that prevent overheating, which can damage components or corrupt data.
The software responses reduce the frequency of instructions and voltage to components, which temporarily slows operations or clock speed, and enables reliable operation.
“The risk of storage controllers failing due to heat is greater in applications, such as mobile computing, military, and other ruggedized computing environments, as well as some smaller businesses, where temperatures cannot be reliably controlled,” explains Jim Kuenzel, Dot Hill’s senior vice president of engineering. “Thanks to our proprietary ASIC and software, we’ve developed an innovative means to ensure that Dot Hill storage arrays continue to operate in high temperatures so that organizations are never without access to their data.”
Dot Hill’s patented, advanced power management system is used in the company’s 2002 Series and 3000 Series arrays. The newest patent includes 78 separate claims covering both single controller and dual controller environments. The claims involve failover, queuing, management of read and write instructions, and power controls.
