US Patent 9423967 Scheduling of I/O writes in a storage environment

A system and method for scheduling read and write operations among a plurality of solid-state storage devices. A computer system comprises client computers and data storage arrays coupled to one another via a network. A data storage array utilizes solid-state drives and Flash memory cells for data storage. A storage controller within a data storage array comprises an I/O scheduler. The data storage controller is configured to receive requests targeted to the data storage medium, said requests including a first type of operation and a second type of operation. The controller is further configured to schedule requests of the first type for immediate processing by said plurality of storage devices, and queue requests of the second type for later processing by the plurality of storage devices. Operations of the first type may correspond to operations with an expected relatively low latency, and operations of the second type may correspond to operations with an expected relatively high latency.