Conner Peripherals, Inc.

Charles M Sander

John P Squires

Stanton MacDonough Keeler

Donald W Clay

Glade N Bagnell

Kurt M Anderson

A controller in a hard disk drive system for controlling the transfer of data and control signals between a plurality of host processors and the disk drive system. The disk drive system including storage media, at least one transducer for recording data on and retrieving data from the storage media and an actuator for moving the transducers with respect to the storage media. The controller includes a programmed first microprocessor operating under control of a first operating system stored in a first memory unit associated with the first microprocessor for controlling the recording of data on and the retrieval of data from the storage media, the controlling of the actuator to locate the transducer at and to maintain the transducer at a specified location with respect to the storage media. The controller includes a programmed second microprocessor operating under control of a second operating system stored in a second memory unit associated with the second microprocessor for controlling the transfer of data from a requesting host processor to the disk drive system and the transfer of data recovered from the storage media to a requesting host processor and for generating and communicating parameters to the first microprocessor for defining operations to be performed by the first microprocessor. The second microprocessor operates independently of and concurrently with the first microprocessor and the first microprocessor operates independently of and concurrently with the second microprocessor in exercising operations defined by the parameters received from the second microprocessor.

Hard disk drive controller employing a plurality of microprocessors

A multi-layer data integrity system for use in a disk drive controller for ensuring the data integrity as data is transferred through the controller and written and fetched from the disk media. The disk drive controller is partitioned into an interface controller and a low level controller where the interface controller controls the transfer of data to and from the host processor and the low level controller controls the recording and reading from the disk media. The interface controller employs a first error encoding and detecting means for encoding the data as originally received from the host processor. The low level controller employs an error encoding and detecting means for encoding both the received data and the encoding data which was appended to the data received by the interface controller. The low level controller's error encoding and detecting means corrects errors detected in recovered data. The interface controller during a fetch operation receives the data from the low level controller and determines if the data is valid and whether the data received from the low level controller was in fact the data being sought by the interface controller.

Disk drive data path integrity control architecture

A multiple actuator disk drive utilizes multiple heads, associated with respective ones of multiple actuators, to read data from and write data to all tracks on the surface of a disk. The positioning of each head by the respective actuator is controlled by embedded servo-information recorded in the data tracks. The data tracks have a density of greater than 2000 tracks per inch. Utilizing two actuators provides access times which are reduced with respect to the access times provided by disk drives having a single actuator and an increased data transfer rate.

Multiple actuator disk drive

A high level controller for maintaining communication with a host processor via a host processor interface for establishing communication paths between the host processor interface, an internal processor and a plurality of storage means. A first means receives indicia from the internal processor where the indicia specifies one of the communication paths and generates control signals for forming the specific communication path requested. A second means receives the control signals from the first means and forms the requested communication path. A third means is connected to the first and second means for controlling the communication of the system with the host processor interface in accordance with control signals generated by the first means. In this manner various data paths for communication between the host interface, internal processor and a plurality of storage means may be adaptably specified and formed to make optimum use of the system.

Flexible host interface controller architecture

A disk drive architecture controls the transfer of data between a host processor interface and a recording media that includes one or more disk surfaces for storing data. A low-level data controller controls the transfer of data between the disk surfaces and a data buffer. An interface controller controls the transfer of data between the host interface and the data buffer. An arbiter and buffer controller, responsive to data transfer requests from the low-level and interface controllers, arbitrates data storage and retrieval accesses of the data buffer. The low-level and interface controllers operate substantially independent of one another in performing their respective control operations. Consequently, data is transferred bi-directionally through the data buffer at the optimum timing for both controllers.

Multiple microcontroller hard disk drive control architecture

A multiple actuator disk drive utilizes multiple heads, associated with respective ones of multiple actuators, to read data from and write data to all tracks on the surface of a disk. The positioning of each head by the respective actuators is controlled by embedded servo-information recorded in the data tracks. The data tracks have a density of greater than 2000 tracks per inch. Utilizing two actuators provides access times which are reduced with respect to the access times provided by disk drives having a single actuator and an increased data transfer rate.

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Longmont, CO, United States of America

Charles M Sander