Patent ID: 8112580
Filing Date: 2012-02-07
Classification: G11B

Abstract:
1. A magnetic recording disk drive comprising: N magnetic recording disks numbered from 0 to N−1 and rotatable about a common axis, each disk having a front surface and a back surface and at least one disk surface having a plurality of concentric data tracks, each data track including a plurality of contiguous sectors for the storage of data blocks from a host computer, each sector having an associated logical block address (LBA); a nonvolatile memory having a plurality of addresses for the storage of data blocks from a host computer, each nonvolatile memory address having an associated LBA, wherein the nonvolatile memory has N−2 partitions numbered from 1 to N−2 and associated with disks 1 to N−2, each partition having LBAs numbered consecutively between an LBA on the front surface of its associated disk and the back surface of its associated disk; first and second read/write heads for writing data blocks to the sectors and reading data blocks from the sectors; a head actuator connected to the heads for moving the heads across the disk surfaces; a driver connected to the head actuator for moving the head actuator axially to enable the heads to move in axial gaps between axially-adjacent disks to access different disk surfaces, wherein the first head accesses only the back surfaces of the disks and the second head accesses only the front surfaces of the disks; and a controller adapted for connection to the host computer for transferring data blocks between the host computer and the sectors on the disk surfaces and addresses in the nonvolatile memory in response to read and write commands from the host computer.