Patent ID: 6532517
Filing Date: 2003-03-11
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
In a computing system that is comprised of a data conveyance system coupled to communicate with a data storage system, where the data storage system includes a controller and a storage medium having a plurality of storage locations accessed by a read/write arm, a method of configuring data prior to storing it on the storage median at the data storage system in a manner so as to reduce movement of the read/write arm when accessing the data after it has been stored on the storage medium, the method comprising:at the data conveyance system, gathering data for storage on the storage medium; prior to sending the gathered data for storage on the storage medium of the data storage system, configuring the data for storage at a plurality of contiguous storage locations by generating a filesystem describing an organizational structure of the data, and combining the data and the filesystem to form a partition file; prior to sending the configured data for storage on the storage medium of the data storage system, associating a storage instruction with the configured data, the storage instruction instructing the controller to store the configured data in a contiguous series of the storage locations; sending the configured data and associated storage instruction to the data storage system; and at the data storage system, responsive to the storage instruction sent, the controller storing the data in a contiguous series of storage locations at the storage medium by either i) finding contiguous storage locations which are empty, or ii) de-fragmenting the storage disk to make a sufficient number of contiguous storage locations available, in order to reduce the need for movement of the road/write arm between non-contiguous storage locations when accessing the data.