Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US6163422
Timestamp: 2015-07-06 21:21:54
Document Index: 672357755

Matched Legal Cases: ['application No. 08', 'application No. 08', 'application No. 08', 'application No. 08', 'application No. 09', 'application No. 09', 'application No. 09', 'application No. 09']

Patent US6163422 - Method and apparatus for increasing disc drive performance - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inAdvanced Patent SearchPatentsA method of managing information to be stored on a storage disc in a disc drive system to achieve improved system performance. Some of the data on the disc may be mirrored on the same surface of the disc to reduce latency and/or seek time. Compression techniques may be employed to limit reductions in...http://www.google.com/patents/US6163422?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US6163422 - Method and apparatus for increasing disc drive performanceAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS6163422 APublication typeGrantApplication numberUS 09/289,290Publication dateDec 19, 2000Filing dateApr 9, 1999Priority dateJun 30, 1997Fee statusPaidAlso published asUS6067199, US6134062, US6278566, US6282041Publication number09289290, 289290, US 6163422 A, US 6163422A, US-A-6163422, US6163422 A, US6163422AInventorsSteven M. BlumenauOriginal AssigneeEmc CorporationExport CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (17), Non-Patent Citations (8), Referenced by (11), Classifications (31), Legal Events (5) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetMethod and apparatus for increasing disc drive performance
US 6163422 AAbstract
1. A method of managing information to be stored on a disc in a disc drive system, the disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information, the method comprising steps of:(A) writing at least one block of information to at least one first sector on the surface of the disc; and, prior to writing another block of information different from the at least one block of information to the disc, and prior to reading the at least one block of information from the at least one first sector, (B) writing the at least one block of information to at least one second sector on the surface of the disc so that the surface of the disc includes two copies of the at least one block of information. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information, the at least one first sector includes a plurality of first sectors, the at least one second sector includes a plurality of second sectors, and wherein:the step (A) includes a step of writing each block of the plurality of blocks of information to a respective first sector on the surface of the disc; and the step (B) includes a step of writing each block of the plurality of blocks of information to a respective second sector on the surface of the disc so that the surface of the disc includes at least two copies of each block of the plurality of blocks of information. 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one first sector and the at least one second sector are disposed on different tracks on the surface of the disc.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information including a first group of information blocks, and wherein:step (A) includes a step of writing each of the first group of information blocks to a first track on the surface of the disc; and step (B) includes a step of writing each of the first group of information blocks to a second track on the surface of the disc, so that the second track is a mirror of the first track. 5. The method of claim 4, wherein the plurality of blocks of information further includes a second group of information blocks, and wherein step (A) includes a step of writing each of the second group of information blocks to only a single track on the surface of the disc.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information including a first group of information blocks, and wherein:step (A) includes a step of writing the first group of information blocks to a first region on the surface of the disc, the first region including a plurality of tracks; and step (B) includes a step of writing the first group of information blocks to a mirror region on the surface of the disc, the mirror region including a plurality of tracks. 7. The method of claim 6, wherein step B includes a step of forming the mirror region so that each of the plurality of tracks in the mirror region is a mirror of a corresponding one of the plurality of tracks in the first region.
8. The method of claim 1, further including a step of compressing a unit of information to form the at least one block of information.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein step (B) includes a step of writing the at least one block of information to the at least one second sector immediately after the at least one block of information is written to the at least one first sector, such that the at least one first sector and the at least one second sector are written consecutively.
10. A method of managing information to be stored on a disc in a disc drive system, the disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information, the method comprising a step of:(A) writing at least one block of information to at least two sectors on a single track on the surface of the disc, so that the single track includes two copies of the at least one block of information. 11. The method of claim 10, wherein step (A) includes a step of writing the at least one block of information to at least two sectors that are disposed approximately 180 degrees apart on the single track.
12. The method of claim 10, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information, and wherein the step (A) includes a step of writing each one of the plurality of blocks of information to at least two sectors on the single track on the surface of the disc.
13. The method of claim 10, wherein the step (A) includes a step of writing the at least one block of information to at least three sectors on the single track on the surface of the disc.
14. A method of managing information to be stored on a disc in a disc drive system, the disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information, the method comprising a step of:(A) writing at least one block of information to at least two sectors on the surface of the disc so that the surface of the disc includes two copies of the at least one block of information, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information including a first group of information blocks, and wherein the step (A) includes steps of:writing each of the first group of information blocks to a first track on the surface of the disc; and writing each of the first group of information blocks to a second track on the surface of the disc, so that the second track is a mirror of the first track, wherein the plurality of blocks of information further includes a second group of information blocks, and wherein the step (A) includes a step of writing each block of the second group of information blocks to only a single track that is disposed between the first and second tracks. 15. A method of managing information to be stored on a disc in a disc drive system, the disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information, the method comprising a step of:(A) writing at least one block of information to at least two sectors on the surface of the disc so that the surface of the disc includes two copies of the at least one block of information, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information including a first group of information blocks, and wherein the step (A) includes a step of:writing the first group of information blocks to two regions on the surface of the disc, the two regions including a first region and a mirror region, each of the first and mirror regions including a plurality of tracks, wherein the plurality of blocks of information further includes a second group of information blocks, and wherein step (A) includes steps of:writing the second group of information blocks to a second region on the surface of the disc, the second region including a plurality of tracks; and writing each block of the second group of information blocks to only a single track on the surface of the disc. 16. The method of claim 15, wherein step (A) includes a step of forming the second region between the first region and the mirror region.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein the disc has outer radii that define an outer region on the disc, and wherein step (A) includes a step of forming the first region of the outer radii of the disc.
18. The method of claim 15, wherein step (A) includes a step of forming the first, second and mirror regions to include substantially equal numbers of tracks.
19. The method of claim 18, wherein step (A) includes a step of forming the mirror region so that each of the plurality of tracks in the mirror region is a mirror of a corresponding one of the plurality of tracks in the first region.
20. The method of claim 15, wherein step (A) includes a step of forming the mirror region so that each of the plurality of tracks in the mirror region is a mirror of a corresponding one of the plurality of tracks in the first region.
21. A method of managing information to be stored on a disc in a disc drive system, the disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information, the method comprising a step of:(A) writing at least one block of information to at least two sectors on the surface of the disc so that the surface of the disc includes two copies of the at least one block of information, wherein the step (A) includes a step of writing the at least one block of information to at least three sectors including a first sector, a second sector and a third sector, the first and second sectors being disposed on a first track on the surface of the disc so that the first track includes two copies of the block of information, the third sector being disposed on a second track that is different from the first track. 22. A method of managing information to be stored on a disc in a disc drive system, the disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information, the method comprising a step of:(A) writing at least one block of information to at least two sectors on the surface of the disc so that the surface of the disc includes two copies of the at least one block of information, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information, and wherein the step (A) includes a step of:writing the plurality of blocks of information to two regions on the surface of the disc, the two regions including a first region and a mirror region that is a mirror of the first region, the first region and the mirror region including a plurality of shared tracks, the first region including a first portion of each of the plurality of shared tracks, the mirror region including a mirrored portion of each of the plurality of shared tracks. 23. The method of claim 22, further including a step of discontinuing writes to the mirror region at a specified time while continuing writes to the first region, so that the mirror region includes a snap shot of information stored on the first region at the specified time.
24. A disc drive, comprising:at least one disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information; and a controller that writes at least one block of information to at least one first sector on the surface of the disc and, prior to writing at least one other block of information different from the at least one block of information to the disc, and prior to reading the at least one block of information from the at least one first sector, the controller writes the at least one block of information to at least one second sector on the surface of the disc to create two copies of the at least one block of information on the surface of the disc. 25. The disc drive of claim 24, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information, the at least one first sector includes a plurality of first sectors, the at least one second sector includes a plurality of second sectors, and wherein the controller includes:means for writing each block of the plurality of blocks of information to respective first sectors on the surface of the disc, and for, prior to writing at least one other block of information different from the at least one block of information to the disc, and prior to reading the at least one block of information from the at least one first sector, writing each block of the plurality of blocks of information to respective second sectors on the surface of the disc so that the surface of the disc includes at least two copies of each block of the plurality of blocks of information. 26. The disc drive of claim 24, wherein the controller includes means for writing the at least one block of information to the at least one second sector, wherein the at least one second sector and the at least one first sector are disposed on different tracks on the surface of the disc.
27. The disc drive of claim 24, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information including a first group of information blocks, and wherein the controller includes:means for writing each of the first group of information blocks to a first track on the surface of the disc; and means for writing each of the first group of information blocks to a second track on the surface of the disc, so that the second track is a mirror of the first track. 28. The disc drive of claim 27, wherein the plurality of blocks of information further includes a second group of information blocks, and wherein the controller includes means for writing each of the second group of information blocks to only a single track on the surface of the disc.
29. The disc drive of claim 24, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information including a first group of information blocks, and wherein the controller includes means for writing the first group of information blocks to two regions on the surface of the disc, the two regions including a first region and a mirror region that is a copy of the first region.
30. The disc drive of claim 29, wherein each of the mirror region and the first region includes a plurality of tracks, and wherein the controller includes means for forming the mirror region so that each of the plurality of tracks in the mirror region is a mirror of a corresponding one of the plurality of tracks in the first region.
31. The disc drive of claim 24, further including means for compressing a unit of information to form the at least one block of information.
32. The disc drive of claim 24, wherein the controller writes the at least one block of information to the at least one second sector immediately after the controller writes the at least one block of information to the at least one first sector, such that the controller consecutively writes to the at least one first sector and the at least one second sector.
33. A disc drive, comprising:at least one disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information; and a controller that writes at least one block of information to at least two sectors on the surface of the disc to create two copies of the at least one block of information on the surface of the disc, wherein the controller includes means for writing the at least one block of information to at least two sectors on a single track on the surface of the disc, so that the single track includes two copies of the block of information. 34. The disc drive of claim 33, wherein the controller includes means for writing the at least one block of information to at least two sectors that are disposed approximately 180 degrees apart on the single track.
35. The disc drive of claim 33, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information, and wherein the controller includes means for writing each one of the plurality of blocks of information to at least two sectors on the single track on the surface of the disc.
36. A disc drive, comprising:at least one disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information; and a controller that writes at least one block of information to at least two sectors on the surface of the disc to create two copies of the at least one block of information on the surface of the disc, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information including a first group of information blocks, and wherein the controller includes:means for writing each of the first group of information blocks to a first track on the surface of the disc; and means for writing each of the first group of information blocks to a second track on the surface of the disc, so that the second track is a mirror of the first track, wherein the plurality of blocks of information further includes a second group of information blocks, and wherein the controller includes means for writing each block of the second group of information blocks to only a single track that is disposed on the surface of the disc between the first and second tracks. 37. A disc drive, comprising:at least one disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information; and a controller that writes at least one block of information to at least two sectors on the surface of the disc to create two copies of the at least one block of information on the surface of the disc, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information including a first group of information blocks, and wherein the controller includes means for writing the first group of information blocks to two regions on the surface of the disc, the two regions including a first region and a mirror region that is a copy of the first region, wherein each of the first region and the mirror region includes a plurality of tracks, wherein the plurality of blocks of information further includes a second group of information blocks, and wherein the controller includes:means for writing the second group of information blocks to a second region on the surface of the disc, the second region including a plurality of tracks; and means for writing each block of the second group of information blocks to only a single track on the surface of the disc. 38. The disc drive of claim 37, wherein the controller includes means for forming the second region between the first region and the mirror region.
39. The disc drive of claim 38, wherein the disc has outer radii that define an outer region on the disc, and wherein the controller includes means for forming the first region at the outer radii of the disc.
40. The disc drive of claim 39, wherein controller includes means for forming the first, second and mirror regions to include substantially equal numbers of tracks.
41. The disc drive of claim 40, wherein the controller includes means for forming the mirror region so that each of the plurality of tracks in the mirror region is a mirror of a corresponding one of the plurality of tracks in the first region.
42. The disc drive of claim 37, wherein the controller includes means for forming the first, second and mirror regions to include substantially equal numbers of tracks.
43. A disc drive, comprising:at least one disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information; and a controller that writes at least one block of information to at least two sectors on the surface of the disc to create two copies of the at least one block of information on the surface of the disc, wherein the controller includes means for writing the at least one block of information to at least three sectors including a first sector, a second sector and a third sector, the first and second sectors being disposed on a first track on the surface of the disc so that the first track includes two copies of the at least one block of information, the third sector being disposed on a second track that is different from the first track. 44. A disc drive, comprising:at least one disc having a surface including a plurality of information tracks, each of the tracks including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information; and a controller that writes at least one block of information to at least two sectors on the surface of the disc to create two copies of the at least one block of information on the surface of the disc, wherein the at least one block of information includes a plurality of blocks of information, and wherein the controller includes means for writing the plurality of blocks of information to two regions on the surface of the disc, the two regions including a first region and a mirror region that is a mirror of the first region, the first region and the mirror region including a plurality of shared tracks, the first region including a first portion of each of the plurality of shared tracks, the mirror region including a second portion of each of the plurality of shared tracks. 45. The disc drive of claim 44, further including means for discontinuing writes to the mirror region at a specified time while continuing writes to the first region, so that the mirror region includes a snap shot of information stored on the first region at the specified time.
46. A storage disc for use in a disc drive system, the storage disc comprising:a surface including a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information, the plurality of sectors being arranged to form a plurality of tracks, each of the tracks including a number of the plurality of sectors, at least one track of the plurality of tracks including at least first and second sectors that store a common block of information such that the second sector stores a mirror of the first sector. 47. The storage disc of claim 46, wherein the first sector and the at least one other sector are disposed approximately 180 degrees apart on the at least one track.
48. The storage disc of claim 46, wherein the surface further includes a third sector that also stores the first block of information, the third sector being arranged on a track that is different from the at least one track that includes the first sector and the at least one other sector.
49. A storage disc for use in a disc drive system, the storage disc comprising a surface including:a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information, the plurality of sectors being arranged to form a plurality of tracks, each of the tracks including a number of the plurality of sectors; a first region that includes a first group of the plurality of tracks; a second region that includes a second group of the plurality of tracks; and a third region that includes a third group of the plurality of tracks, wherein each of the tracks in the first group of tracks has a corresponding mirror track in the second group of tracks, and wherein the third region has no corresponding mirrored region on the surface. 50. The storage disc of claim 49, wherein the third region is disposed between the first and second regions.
51. The storage disc of claim 50, wherein the disc has outer radii that define an outer portion of the disc, and wherein the first region is disposed at the outer radii of the disc.
52. The storage disc of claim 51, wherein the first, second, and third regions include a substantially equal number of tracks.
53. A storage disc for use in a disc drive system, the storage disc comprising a surface including:a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information, the plurality of sectors being arranged to form a plurality of tracks, each of the tracks including a number of the plurality of sectors; a first region that includes a first group of the plurality of sectors; and a second region that includes a second group of the plurality of sectors, the first and second groups of the plurality of sectors storing common blocks of information such that the second region forms a mirror of the first region, wherein the first and second regions include a plurality of shared tracks, the first region including a first portion of each of the plurality of shared tracks, the second region including a second portion of each of the plurality of shared tracks. 54. A storage disc for use in a disc drive system, the storage disc comprising a surface including:a plurality of sectors, each sector for storing a block of information, the plurality of sectors being arranged to form a plurality of tracks, each of the tracks including a number of the plurality of sectors; a first region that includes a first group of the plurality of sectors; a second region that includes a second group of the plurality of sectors; and a third region that includes a third group of the plurality of sectors, the first, second and third groups of the plurality of sectors storing common blocks of information such that the second and third regions respectively form first and second mirrors of the first region. Description
This application is a divisional of application Ser. No. 08/885,639, filed Jun. 30, 1997, entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR INCREASING DISK DRIVE PERFORMANCE, and now U.S. Pat. No. 6,067,199.
FIG. 6 illustrates an arrangement of a storage disc in accordance with another illustrative embodiment of the invention employing compression techiques to achieve improved system performance;
In the embodiment of the invention shown in FIG. 2, a number of mirror tracks are also provided on a mirrored portion of the disc indicated by the dotted line 19. The mirror tracks include a track 21 that is a mirror of TRACK-- 0 15, a TRACK-- N/2 23 which is a mirror of a track halfway between tracks 15 and 17, and a number of mirror tracks disposed in between. The tracks disposed between tracks 21 and 23 include a mirror of each track disposed between TRACK-- 0 and the track halfway between TRACK-- 0 and TRACK-- N. Thus, the mirrored portion 19 of the disc includes a mirror of the outer one-half of the tracks stored on the disc.
An alternate embodiment of the invention is shown in FIG. 4, which employs mirroring techniques in a different manner than the embodiment of FIG. 2 to achieve improved system performance. The embodiment of the invention shown in FIG. 4 is arranged to reduce the latency of the system by mirroring the data so that every sector is stored twice on the same track at positions that are approximately 180� apart. For example, FIG. 4 illustrates a track having a number of sectors from SECTOR-- 0 35 through SECTOR-- M 37. These sectors are stored twice on the same track, once in a first region C1 of the disc 33, and a second time in a mirrored region disc 33.
In an alternate embodiment of the invention, a number of extended sectors can be provided for each main sector, so that the extended sectors can store an entire block of uncompressed data. For example, referring to the example above wherein the compression ratio to is 2:1, two extended sectors can be provided for each main sector. When a block of data compresses, it is stored entirely in the main sector. Alternatively, when a block of data does not compress, it is stored entirely in the corresponding pair of extended sectors. This embodiment of the invention results in a reduction of capacity in comparison to the embodiment of FIG. 6. However, performance improvements are achieved when accessing uncompressed blocks of data, because uncompressed blocks are stored in consecutive sectors on the disc so that no seek delays are incurred when doing a read/write of an uncompressed block of data.
As discussed above, the present invention is not limited to the use of a 2:1 compression ratio, which was described above merely for illustrative purposes. Other compression ratios can also be employed. When used in conjunction with the embodiment of the invention described in connection with FIG. 6 wherein dedicated extended sectors are assigned to each sector in the outer region 53 of the disc, the number of extended sectors depends upon the compression ratio.
For example, if a compression of 4:1 is employed, the standard block size (e.g., 512 bytes) would be divided by four (e.g., 128 bytes) to create reduced size sectors on the disc in the manner discussed above. To handle the worst case situation wherein no compression can be performed, three extended sectors would be assigned to each of the primary sectors located on the outer region 53 of the disc.
It should be appreciated that when data is written to or read from, the disc in raw form, the effective rate of data transferred to and from the disc drive is increased. For example, using the exemplary 2:1 compression ratio discussed above, a read of a compressed block stored in a reduced-size sector of 256 bytes actually represents 512 bytes of data. Thus, by operating upon the raw data, the performance of a number of applications can be improved. Although a number of specific examples are discussed below, it should be understood that the invention is not limited to these particular applications, and that the embodiment of the invention that operates upon raw data can also be used to increase the performance of other applications. In addition, the specific commands described above are provided merely for illustrative purposes, and it should be understood that other commands can also be employed to operate upon raw data to increase the performance of specific applications.
One illustrative example employing multiple heads can be implemented in connection with the embodiment of FIG. 6. One head can be provided to access the outer region 53 of the disc, and a second head can be provided to access the inner region 55. This avoids seek delays when performing a double read/write to a main sector (e.g., 57) and its corresponding extended sector (e.g., 59). Similarly, in the embodiment of FIG. 4, two heads can be provided 180 degrees apart to avoid latency delays in performing a double write to both portions of the disc C1 and C2. Alternatively, the two heads can be provided approximtely 90 degrees apart to further reduce the worst case latency of the system. It should be appreciated that numerous other arrangements including two or more heads can be employed to achieve improved system performance in conjunction with each of the above-described embodiments of the present invention.
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(A CANADIAN CORPORATION);REEL/FRAME:010977/0769Effective date: 20000101Owner name: GILLETTE CANADA COMPANY A NOVA SCOTIA CORPORATIONOwner name: GILLETTE CANADA COMPANY A NOVA SCOTIA CORPORATIONFree format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:GILLETTE CANADA INC. (A CANADIAN CORPORATION);REEL/FRAME:010977/0769Effective date: 20000101Jun 21, 2004FPAYFee paymentYear of fee payment: 4Jun 19, 2008FPAYFee paymentYear of fee payment: 8Jun 19, 2012FPAYFee paymentYear of fee payment: 12RotateOriginal ImageGoogle Home - Sitemap - USPTO Bulk Downloads - Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - About Google Patents - Send FeedbackData provided by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services