Method for packing variable size user data records into fixed size blocks on a storage medium

A method and an apparatus for packing variable size user data records into fixed size blocks on a storage medium. The invention includes the steps of receiving user data of variable record lengths along with error detection information; creating a data page for each user data record; building a map entry of record packing information for each data page; and storing each data page and its associated map within the same physical record on a storage medium. The data pages being stored in consecutive order and the map entries are stored in reverse order. A predetermined number of physical blocks are combined to form a logical block and a predetermined number of logical blocks form an entity.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
Magnetic tapes continue to provide low-cost input/output capability for 
computer data interchange and off-line storage. To improve performance 
different schemes have been used to maximize tape area usage, primarily 
through data compression schemes and record packing schemes that reduce 
tape wastage between records on tape. In the past, if a user data record 
ended in the middle of a tape block the rest of the tape block had to be 
padded so that the next user data record could be written at the next tape 
block. This led to significant wastage of tape due to padding between 
records. 
Before the use of data compression schemes, a smart and efficient user 
would choose data records that were multiples of the native tape block 
size. With that choice of records, tape blocks were used in full without 
padding. However, with the advent of data compression schemes, user data 
becomes compressed to variable sizes thereby using up fractions of tape 
blocks, hence causing wastage. 
In order to overcome the problem of wasted area on tapes while using data 
compression schemes, record packing techniques are used. One such scheme 
uses super tape blocks of variable Size capable of containing multiple 
user data records. This scheme requires the use of variable size headers 
for each variable size super tape block to describe the partition of user 
data records within each block. Such a scheme is not suitable for systems 
using fixed size tape blocks. Further, for systems using block ECC codes 
variable block sizes are not efficient. 
Another record packing scheme is used with the Digital Audio Tape (DAT) 
fixed block tape format. The DAT is a helical scan tape having diagonal 
tracks. Data records are written in groups of about 20 tracks. In the last 
track of each group an index is maintained that describes the partition of 
the tracks in the group. Having the index in the last track of the group 
makes appending to data records in DAT difficult. Further, if the index is 
irrecoverable for some reason the amount of data lost is significant. 
There is a need for a record packing scheme that uses fixed size tape 
blocks to store variable size user data records while using data 
compression techniques to maximize tape utilization. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
The present invention is a method and an apparatus for packing variable 
size user data records into fixed size blocks on a storage medium. 
An object of the invention is a method and apparatus for improving magnetic 
tape capacity through record packing by reducing the wastage of tape 
between data records. 
Another object of the invention is to ensure that data is appended at the 
proper physical location on the tape, thus providing an advantageous 
decrease in soft error rate encountered during read and append operations. 
These and other objects are attained, in a broad sense, through the use of 
various features of the invention. The invention includes the steps of 
receiving user data of variable record lengths along with error detection 
information; creating one or more data pages for each user data record; 
building a map of record packing information for each data page; and 
storing each data page and its associated map within the same physical 
record on a storage medium. 
In a narrower sense the objects of the invention are attained by the use of 
a storage medium that has physical blocks of pre-determined fixed size, 
where each physical block further comprises a data field and a map field. 
The data field comprises pages of user data and the map field comprises 
record packing information for each page of user data in said data field. 
In yet another sense the objects of the invention are attained by locating 
the page and map entries within each physical block, locating the map 
entry at the bottom of the physical block, and by building the page and 
map entries from opposite directions. 
It is an advantage of this invention that tape area usage is maximized 
using a record packing scheme that reduces tape wastage between records on 
tape. 
It is yet another advantage of this invention that the map entry for each 
data page is co-located with its associated data page within the same 
physical block thereby providing a data integrity guarantee during append 
operations such that if an append operation is unsuccessful, all data 
objects located prior to the append location are fully recoverable. 
The foregoing and additional objects, features and advantages of the 
present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from a 
more detailed consideration of the preferred embodiment thereof, taken in 
conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
FIG. 1 is an example of a computer system 10 according to the invention 
that includes a tape system 12. The computer system 10 includes among 
other components a CPU 14, memory 16, and I/O bus adapter 18 all coupled 
to a system bus 20. Coupled to the I/O bus adapter 18 is an I/O bus 22, 
which supports various peripheral devices 24 and a tape drive controller 
26, which controls data transfers to and from a tape 28 within a tape 
drive 30. The tape controller 26 further includes a memory 31, control 
logic 32, and a digital to analog convertor 34. The tape drive 30 includes 
a tape head 36 and the tape 28. 
In order to write data to the tape 28, data passes through the I/O adapter 
18 from the system bus 20 to the I/O bus 22. The tape controller 26 stores 
the data in the memory 31. When an entire "record" of information has been 
stored in the memory 31, it is then transferred by direct memory access 
(DMA) to the tape 28. In a conventional manner, the digital to analog 
convertor 34 converts the data to the analog form suitable for tape 
storage, while the control logic 32 provides the proper control signals to 
the tape head 36 in the tape drive 30. 
More specifically, data records are written on the tape 28 in entities as 
shown in FIG. 2. Each entity 70 includes ten logical blocks 72, composed 
of eight data blocks 74 and two ECC blocks 76. Each logical block 72 has 
two physical blocks 38, written on two tracks. There are gaps between the 
each physical block. 
Further as shown in FIG. 2a, each physical block 38 comprises data pages 
44, error detection information in the form of CRC checksums 46 for each 
page of data, together defining data field 40. Also as shown in FIG. 2a, 
each physical block 38 also comprises map field 52 of map entries 53 of 
record packing information for each data page 44, Error Detection Code 
(EDC) 50 and control block 48. 
Further as shown in detail in FIG. 3, according to the principles of the 
invention, each physical block 38 comprises 4140 bytes. Part of the 
physical block 38, shown as section 40, is DMA'ed from memory, while the 
remainder, shown as 42, is added from memory 31 at the end of the block. 
Section 40 of the physical block includes data fields 44, or pages, 
containing the actual stored data, and CRC checksums 46 for each page of 
data. As shown in FIG. 3, the data field 40, filler 50 and the map field 
52 together add up to 4108 bytes. The map field 52 has 1 to 100 map 
entries 53, each map entry 53 being 8 bytes. Therefore, if there is only 
one map entry 53, then the maximum size of the data field 40 is 4100 
bytes. Similarly, if there are 100 map entries 53, i.e. 800 bytes of map 
entries in map field 52, then the maximum size of the data field 40 is 
3208 bytes. 
As shown in FIG. 3, the data field 40 of each physical block 38 comprises 
data pages 44. A data page 44 is a group of data bytes inside a physical 
tape block 38. All data bytes in a page 44 belong to one record. A record 
may have started in a previous physical block and may continue to the next 
physical block, hence a data record maybe be written in one or more pages 
44. 
As explained above, a data page 44 may have 0 to 4100 bytes of data. If a 
data page 44 is the last page for a record it has two bytes of CRC 46 
following the data page 44. As shown in FIGS. 2a and 3, after the two 
bytes of CRC 46 another data page 44 may begin with data belonging to the 
next user record. In FIG. 3, Page 0, Page 1, and Page 2 are data pages 44 
belonging to different data records and are each followed by two bytes of 
CRC 46. 
As shown in FIG. 3, the two bytes of CRC 46 are written in even offset. 
Therefore, if the page byte count is odd there is a pad byte, i.e., one 
byte of zero (indicated by reference numeral 45 in FIG. 3) between the 
data page 44 and the CRC 46. As shown in FIG. 3, Page 0 has an odd page 
byte count and therefore has a pad byte 45 of zero between the end of data 
page 0 and the two bytes of CRC 46 following data page 0. Further, as 
shown in FIG. 3, if the page byte count is even, the CRC 46 immediately 
follows the last data byte of the data page 44. As shown in FIG. 3, Page 2 
has an even page byte count and therefore has no pad byte 45 of zero 
between the end of data page 2 and the two bytes of CRC 46 following data 
page 2. 
Also, as shown in FIG. 3, a data page 44 must begin in a 4*N offset. 
Therefore, if a previous data page CRC 46 doesn't end in 4*N offset, two 
bytes of zeros 47 are appended after the CRC to enable the following data 
page to begin with a 4*N offset. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, CRC 46 
for data page 1 doesn't end in 4*N offset, and therefore two bytes of 
zeros 47 are appended after the CRC 46 to enable the following data page 
44, i.e. page 2, to begin with a 4*N offset. 
However, as shown in FIG. 3, if the data pages 44 and the map field entries 
53 don't add up to 4108 bytes then the remaining byte locations in the 
data field 40 up to the beginning of the map field 52 are filled with 
zeros. This entry is called a filler and is denoted by reference numeral 
50 in FIG. 3. 
Further, as shown in FIG. 3, each physical block 38 comprises a map field 
52 of map entries 53 of record packing information for each data page 44, 
according to the principles of the invention. As shown, the logically 
first map entry 53, i.e., the map entry 53 belonging to the first data 
page 44, is physically the last map entry 53 in the physical block 38. For 
example, as shown in FIG. 3, the map entry E0, represented by reference 
numeral 53, belonging to the first data page 44, denoted by page 0, is 
physically the last map entry 53 in the physical block 38, but logically 
the first map entry 53. Similarly, as shown in FIG. 3, map entry E1, 
belonging to data page 1, is physically the second from last map entry 53 
in the physical block 38. 
Further, as shown in FIG. 3, each map entry 53 is eight bytes long and 
comprises several sub-fields. The first sub-field is the "compress" field 
80 which occupies 1 bit in each map entry and is denoted by C:1 in each 
map entry 53 (E0 . . . EN) of FIG. 3. If the compress field bit is set to 
`1`, it indicates that the data in the corresponding data page 44 is 
stored in compressed format. 
The next map entry/sub-field is the "type" field 82. As shown in FIG. 3, 
each "type" field 82 occupies 3 bits and is denoted by Etype:3 in each map 
entry 53 (E0 . . . EN). Each map entry 53 either describes either a data 
page, a tape mark or a filler. The type field 82 using three bits 
indicates the type of data in the data field 40 that the map entry 53 
represents. According to the principles of the invention, when a map entry 
53 represents a corresponding data page 44 having user data, the three 
bits of "type" field 82 are set to indicate a user data page 44. When a 
map entry 53 represents a file demarker, the three bits of "type" field 82 
are set to indicate a tape mark. 
Similarly, when a physical block 38 has no data pages, the corresponding 
map entry 53 has the "type" field 82 set to represent filler 50. Further, 
when data pages 44 and the map field entries 53 don't add up to 4108 
bytes, the remaining byte locations in the data field 40 up to the 
beginning of the map sub-field 52 are also occupied by filler 50. However, 
fillers of this type don't have any associated map entry. 
Further, as shown in FIG. 3, each map entry 53 has a "next" sub-field 84 
which occupies 1 bit, and is denoted by N:1 in each map entry 53 (E0 . . . 
EN). If the "next" sub-field bit 84 is set to `1` it indicates that a user 
data record continues on to the next physical block 38. 
Also as indicated in FIG. 3, another sub-field in a map entry 53 is the 
"previous" field 86 which also occupies 1 bit, and is denoted by P:1 in 
each map entry 53 (E0 . . . EN). If the "previous" field bit 86 is set to 
`1` it indicates that the record in a data page 44 is a continuation of a 
record from a previous physical block 38. 
Further, as shown in FIG. 3, another sub-field in each map entry 53 is the 
"last" field 88 which occupies 1 bit and, and is denoted by L:1 in each 
map entry 53 (E0 . . . EN). The "last" field 88 indicates whether a 
particular map entry is the last logical map entry. 
Further, as shown in FIG. 3, there are also nine reserved bits in each map 
entry 53 which are always set to zeros. These reserved bits are indicated 
by (u):9 in FIG. 3. 
Also, as shown each map entry 53 contains a page byte count 90 that 
occupies two bytes. The page byte count 90, represented as page.sub.-- 
byte.sub.-- cnt:16 in FIG. 3, indicates the size of the corresponding data 
page 44, or tape mark, or filler 50. The page byte count 90 does not 
including the pad bytes 45 or the CRC 46. Also included in each map entry 
53 is a record byte count 92 that occupies four bytes. The record byte 
count 92 indicates the size of the user record in the corresponding data 
page 44 before compression. 
Further, as shown in FIGS. 2a and 3, following the data field 40 and the 
map field 52, i.e., at byte location 4108 in each physical block is the 
EDC 51. As shown, the EDC 51 (EDC:16) occupies 2 bytes and is used to 
check the integrity of each physical block 38 in read and write modes. 
Further as shown in FIGS. 2a and 3, each physical block 38 also includes a 
control field 48 containing bits representing various characteristics of 
the physical block 38, such as format codes, tape markers, data types, 
compression types, etc. As shown in FIG. 3, a logical block number field 
72 is also included, representing the logical position of the physical 
block 38 on the tape relative to other physical blocks 38. Further, as 
shown, the control field 48 of each physical block 38 also includes a 
backlink field 54, used during appends to determine the physical location 
of the append target block, a physical block number field 56, and other 
fields not directly pertinent to the present invention. 
The control block 48 and it's various sub-fields are used to ensure that 
data is appended at the proper physical location on tape. 
According to the principles of the invention, as shown in FIGS. 2a and 3, 
having each map entry 53 and its associated data page 44 co-located within 
the same physical block 38 provides a data integrity guarantee during 
append operations. If an append operation is unsuccessful, the record 
packing format allows all data objects located prior to the append 
location to be fully recoverable as their map entries 53 are physically 
co-located with the data pages 44 on the media, according to the 
principles of the invention. 
It is apparent that, within the scope of the invention, modifications and 
different arrangements may be made other than herein disclosed. The 
present disclosure is merely illustrative, the invention comprehending all 
variations thereof.