System and method for storing disk sector information

Details System and method for storing disk sector information System and method for storing disk sector information

2000-09-14

2003-08-05

Dorvil, Richemond (Department: 2651)

Dynamic magnetic information storage or retrieval

General recording or reproducing

Signal switching

C369S047320

Reexamination Certificate

active

06603621

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a disk storage device, and in particular to a system and method for transferring sector identification information to a memory device.
2. Description of the Related Art
A hard disk drives includes a read/write head that must be accurately positioned on each track of the target disk. To meet this requirement, servo information is typically pre-recorded on the disk surface and read utilizing the head during track seeking so as to determine each position in the radial direction of the disk. There have been many sector servo type disk drive apparatuses that employ a method in which servo information is dispersed between data items on the disk.
In a typical disk format within a sector servo type disk drive, a track is divided into multiple data sectors and servo sectors. In this format a servo sector includes information for determining a position of the head in a track as described above. User data is stored in each data sector. An identification (ID) area is also provided in each data sector. This ID area stores information for confirming identity as a data sector, flag information denoting a bad sector, and other information.
An ID area is provided in each sector of tracks that are each divided into multiple servo and data sectors. However, such ID areas often occupy more than 10% of a track area in some disk designs, thus reducing disk space used to record data.
To address this problem, IBM Corp. has proposed a technique (Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 5-174498), which is referred to herein as a “No-ID” method for eliminating the ID area from each disk with use of a servo control method. According to this servo control method, a serial number, referred to as an LBA (Logical Block Address), is assigned to the ID area for each track. An ID table containing this LBA information is recorded in a memory device such as a RAM so as to avoid recording of the ID area on the disk. The result is that there is no ID area to be read and tracks can be disposed at narrower pitches. In addition, the capacity of the object hard disk drive can be used for storing data much more than the conventional technique that has to spare a larger space for the ID areas on each disk.
However, as the number of data sectors is increased (increasing the number of data sectors per track for increased data density) in this way, the track information data to be recorded is also increased, resulting in increased data transfer time. In addition, because other tables aside from the ID table are supported by the same hardware, the data transfer time for storing or updating track information into a memory device is further increased.
From the foregoing it can be appreciated that a need exists to improve hard disk drive performance by reducing the amount of time required to update a sector ID table. In particular it would be useful to implement and system and method by which sector ID information may be stored and updated during a track seeking interval so that a drive data bus can serve be utilized as the transport medium for storing and updating sector ID information.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A system and method within a hard disk drive for transferring track sector information of a storage disk to a memory device are disclosed herein. The system of the present invention includes a disk having multiple tracks, wherein each of the tracks includes at least one sector. The system further includes a memory device for storing sector identification data and user data. A drive data bus is utilized for transferring data between the storage disk and the memory. A controller is utilized to manages read and write operations to and from the storage disk, wherein the controller includes means for selecting either said user data or said sector identification data to be transferred to said memory device.
All objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.


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