Patent ID: 6986007

Claim:
A disk drive comprising: (a) a disk comprising a plurality of tracks, an asynchronous partition, and a first and second isochronous partition, wherein: the asynchronous partition comprises a first plurality of contiguous tracks for storing a plurality of files comprising asynchronous data; the first isochronous partition comprises a second plurality of contiguous tracks for storing a plurality of files comprising isochronous data; the second isochronous partition comprises a third plurality of contiguous tracks for storing a plurality of files comprising isochronous data; and the asynchronous partition is located between the first and second isochronous partitions in order to reduce the seek time for the disk drive when seeking between the asynchronous and isochronous partitions; (b) a head actuated radially over the disk; and (c) a disk controller for writing the isochronous data to and reading the isochronous data from the first and second isochronous partitions according to a time-constrained protocol, and for writing the asynchronous data to and reading the asynchronous data from the asynchronous partition according to a best-effort protocol.