Dynamic magnetic information storage or retrieval – General processing of a digital signal – Data in specific format
Patent
1998-05-19
2000-10-24
Faber, Alan T.
Dynamic magnetic information storage or retrieval
General processing of a digital signal
Data in specific format
G11B 509
Patent
active
061376442
ABSTRACT:
A method for adaptively formatting the multiple surfaces of data storage devices such as hard drives. The method ensures that all the drives have the same total data capacity and that the capacity in each data rate is the same from drive to drive. The method includes the step of dividing the data surfaces into warm and cold surfaces using a surface quality measurement. All cold surfaces are formatted with a predetermined cold format and all warm surfaces are formatted with a predetermined warm format. The cold and warm formats have different data capacities by means of different zone layouts, a different number of error correction code bytes per data block, or different track pitches. A second embodiment uses one of three different formats for each surface: cold, nominal, or hot. The cold and hot formats are designed to be mutually compensating in terms of data capacity and each drive has an equal number of cold and hot surfaces. Therefore, each drive has a total data capacity equal to a drive having only nominally formatted surfaces. Preferably, one surface is formatted cold, and one surface is formatted hot, with the rest formatted according to a nominal format. Also disclosed is a method of traversing the tracks of a drive formatted according to the invention. The traversal method uses cylinder access mode or zone access mode traversal for each group of like-formatted surfaces, thus minimizing seek times.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4750059 (1988-06-01), Syracuse
patent: 4780866 (1988-10-01), Syracuse
patent: 5087992 (1992-02-01), Dahandeh et al.
patent: 5202799 (1993-04-01), Hetzler et al.
patent: 5392295 (1995-02-01), Coker et al.
patent: 5430581 (1995-07-01), Moribe et al.
patent: 5537264 (1996-07-01), Pinteric
patent: 5596458 (1997-01-01), Emo et al.
Hetzler Steven R.
Kasiraj Prakash
New Richard M. H.
Faber Alan T.
International Business Machines - Corporation
LandOfFree
Method for adaptive formatting and track traversal in data stora does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Method for adaptive formatting and track traversal in data stora, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Method for adaptive formatting and track traversal in data stora will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-1970877