Patent ID: 7242656

Claim:
A method of starting up disk drive spindle motors in an array disk system having disk drives organized into groups which are started up separately so as to reduce the amount of electric current required by the array disk system, said method comprising: supplying current from a power supply to start up a first group of said spindle motors initially, said first group of said spindle motors started up initially being more than one spindle motor and less than all of said spindle motors; and then supplying current, from the same power supply that supplied current to said first group of said spindle motors initially, to additionally start up one or more of said spindle motors other than said first group of said spindle motors started up initially; wherein the current that is supplied to start up said first group of said spindle motors initially, and the current that is supplied to additionally start up said one or more of said spindle motors, are each less than the current that would be required to start up all of the spindle motors in the array disk system at the same time; and wherein a sum of a time that is required for said first group of spindle motors to reach steady-state from start-up by supplying said current initially, and a time that is required for said one or more of said spindle motors additionally started up to reach steady state from start-up by supplying current from said power supply, is less than a time that would be required to start up all of said spindle motors in the array disk system one-by-one.