Patent ID: 6170037
Filing Date: 2001-01-02
Classification: G06F,G11B,Y10S

Abstract:
A method of managing a disc drive storage system in a data processing system, the disc drive storage system for storing a plurality of blocks of information, the disc drive storage system including a plurality of disc drives that includes at least first and second disc drives, each of the plurality of disc drives including at least one disc so that the system includes at least first and second discs corresponding to the first and second disc drives, each disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector having a physical sector address that identifies a physical location of the sector on the surface of the disc, the data processing system operating upon blocks of information having a minimum uncompressed block size, the method comprising the steps of: (A) arranging each of the plurality of sectors on at least one of the plurality of tracks on each of the first and second discs to have a storage capacity smaller than the minimum uncompressed block size so that at least two of the plurality of sectors are needed to store a block of information having the minimum uncompressed block size; (B) subdividing at least one of the blocks of information to be stored in the disc drive storage system into a plurality of sub-blocks that each is smaller than the minimum uncompressed block size, the plurality of sub-blocks including a first sub-block and a second sub-block; and (C) writing the first sub-block to the first disc drive and the second sub-block to the second disc drive, wherein step (C) includes a step of storing the first sub-block at a first physical location on the first disc and the second sub-block at a second physical location on the second disc, the first physical location being disposed closer to an outer edge of the first disc than the second physical location is disposed to an outer edge of the second disc.