Patent ID: 6563657
Filing Date: 2003-05-13
Classification: G11B

Abstract:
A method of configuring operations of a disk drive to support different modes of data processing therein, comprising:(a) providing a disk drive having disks rotatably mounted thereto, and a plurality of actuators movably mounted to the disk drive for processing data via head gimbal assemblies by reading data from and writing data to the disks; (b) characterizing a type of data to be processed by the disk drive as either a single continuous stream of data or as separate streams of data; (c) operating the disk drive in a sequential mode wherein the single continuous stream of data is divided among at least two of the actuators to process the single continuous stream of data such that the actuators function as a single logical unit; (d) operating the disk drive in an independent mode wherein the separate streams of data are processed by at least two of the actuators independently of each other such that the actuators function as a plurality of independent logical units; and (e) selectively changing the disk drive to operate in either the sequential mode or in the independent mode based on an outcome of step (b) in order to configure operations of the actuators to support the different methods of data access required of them.