Patent ID: 7385781

Claim:
A disk drive system responsive to a plurality of data transfer requests requiring a plurality of corresponding respective seeks and a plurality of corresponding respective data transfers, the disk drive system comprising: a housing; at least one platter rotatably mounted within said housing, said at least one platter having a first data storage surface containing a plurality of surficial data storage locations; a first read/write head movably mounted within said housing and configured to read and write data to ones of said plurality of surficial data storage locations; a first actuator assembly supporting said first read/write head and configured to move said first read/write head so that said first read/write head is able to access said plurality of surficial data storage locations; at least a second read/write head movably mounted within said housing and configured to read and write data to ones of said plurality of surficial data storage locations; a second actuator assembly supporting said second read/write head and configured to move said second read/write head independently of said first read/write head and so that said second read/write head is able to access said plurality of surficial data storage locations; and a controller operatively connected to said first actuator assembly and said second actuator assembly, said controller responsive to the plurality of data transfer requests by interleaving the plurality of corresponding respective seeks between said first actuator assembly and said second actuator assembly, wherein: said controller receives the plurality of data transfer requests in a temporally sequential order, said controller configured to control said first and second read/write heads so as to perform said plurality of corresponding respective data transfers in said temporally sequential order by sequentially alternating the plurality of corresponding respective data transfers between said first and second read/write heads; said controller is configured to control said first and second actuator assemblies so as to perform said plurality of corresponding respective seeks in said temporally sequential order by sequentially alternating the plurality of corresponding respective seeks between said first and second actuator assemblies; and said controller is operatively configured to stall ones of the plurality of corresponding respective data transfers as needed to maintain said temporally sequential order of the plurality of corresponding data transfers.