Don't Blame Disks for Every Storage Subsystem Failure: A Comprehensive Study of Storage Subsystem Failure Characteristics

This paper analyzes the failure characteristics of storage subsystems. More specifically, it analyzes the NetApp AutoSupport logs collected from about 39,000 storage systems commercially deployed at various customer sites. The data set covers a period of 44 months and includes about 1,800,000 disks hosted in about 155,000 storage shelf enclosures. Study reveals many interesting findings, providing useful guideline for designing reliable storage systems.