Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.v.

International Business Machines Corporation

Hgst Netherlands, B.v.

Hitachi Global Technologies Netherlands B.v.

George Anthony Dunn

Mantle Man-Hon Yu

Spencer W Ng

Richard M H New

Frank R Chu

Daniel James Malone, Sr

Edward Ng

Scott Arthur Thomas

James R Shipman

Weining Zeng

Richard Rolls

A base layer for a suspension. The base layer includes a structure. The structure has a slider end portion and a tail portion. The structure includes an opening in the tail portion. The opening provides access to a conductive assembly coupleable there with. The structure also includes a strengthening member integrated within said opening.

High bandwidth and mechanical strength between a disk drive flexible circuit and a read write head suspension

A method and apparatus for improving the capacity of a hard disk drive is provided. In one embodiment, a portion of timing information is written to a first disk prior to coupling the first disk with a hard disk drive. The first disk is then coupled with the hard disk drive having a read element aligned with a write element on a head portion of a head gimbal assembly. The timing information is then provided to the read element during a writing of a set of servo track information on the disk, wherein the portion of timing information allows the read element to be aligned with the write element on the head during the writing of the set of servo track information.

Method and apparatus for increasing storage capacity of a hard disk drive

A disk drive that includes nonvolatile memory monitors the drive's reliability-related parameters to detect real or potential failure events, and records failure-related data in nonvolatile memory, rather than in reserved areas of the disks. The monitoring may be by running a diagnostic routine or by regular or periodic monitoring of disk drive sensors, like temperature and shock sensors. The failure events to be monitored and recorded may include defective data sectors. When a new defective sector is detected after the disk drive has been put into operation, that defective sector is taken out of service and its logical block address (LBA) is mapped to a memory space in the nonvolatile memory rather to a reserved spare sector on the disk. When a read or write command is received for an LBA range that includes the defective sector's LBA, the defective sector is skipped while the whole LBA range of the command is processed and the user data for the defective sector's LBA is read from or written to the mapped memory space in the nonvolatile memory.

Disk drive with nonvolatile memory for storage of failure-related data

Format efficiency of a hard disk of a hard disk drive having a rotary actuator and a read/write head having a read element that is offset from a write element is improved by writing a data track having a length that is based on an arc of the rotary actuator, the radial position of the read/write head with respect to the hard disk and the offset between the read element and the write element.

Method to increase the amount of customer data on a hard disk drive

A compound actuator self-servo writes a hard disk. The compound actuator moves to track n+1. A first head on the compound actuator track follows on track n. The other heads servo write on track n+2. One of the other heads track follow on track n. The first head servo writes track n+2. The value of n is incremented by one, and the process repeats until the entire hard disk is servo written.

Method, system, and article of manufacture for self-servowriting a disk

Techniques are provided for detecting and correcting polarity reversals in signals generated by read/write heads that are used to read magnetic data. Directional patterns are stored in regions of each data track. The directional patterns are used to indicate whether the read/write head has reversed polarity. The read sensor reads the directional patterns along with other data stored on the disk. Electronic circuitry decodes the directional patterns to determine if the read/write head has reversed polarity. If the circuitry determines that the polarity of the read/write head has reversed, the circuitry reverses the polarity of output signals generated by the read sensor to correct for the polarity reversal of the head.

Techniques for detecting polarity reversals of a disk drive read/write head

The performance capability of different heads that are part of the same hard disk drive (HDD) are utilized by an adaptive format that includes a plurality of storage zones and at least one reset zone that are distributed along a radius of the hard disk such that a reset zone is disposed between two adjacent storage zones. Each storage zone has a plurality of associated data tracks and each reset zone includes a plurality of data tracks. The number of data tracks associated with each respective storage zone is based on a performance capability of a head associated with the hard disk and includes at least one data track of at least one reset zone adjacent to the storage zone when the number of data tracks associated with the storage zone exceeds the number of data tracks that are between each reset zone adjacent to the storage zone.

Adaptive data format method integrating spare sectors

The present invention involves a recordable disk having a first plurality of Sservo sample wedges in a first servo zone at an outermost position on the disk, a second plurality of Sservo sample wedges in a second servo zone which is radially adjacent the first servo zone, and a third plurality of Sservo sample wedges in a third servo zone which is radially adjacent the second servo zone. The Sservo sample wedges of the first plurality are equally spaced apart circumferentially around the disk by a first angle &#x3b8;, the Sservo sample wedges of the second plurality are equally spaced apart circumferentially around the disk by a second angle &#x3b8;=&#x3b8;*N, and the Sservo sample wedges of the third plurality are equally spaced apart circumferentially around the disk by a third angle &#x3b8;=&#x3b8;*N. Advantageously, S=S/Nand S=S/N, the Sservo sample wedges of the second plurality are in radial alignment with every Nth wedge of the Sservo sample wedges of the first plurality, and the Sservo sample wedges of the third plurality are in radial alignment with every Nth wedge of the Sservo sample wedges of the second plurality. The number of servo samples are increased nearer the outer position of the disk for improved track following without increasing the number of servo samples at the inner position, which would undesirably decrease storage capacity, and no significant changes to servo detection hardware and software are required.

Embedded servo patterning methods and apparatus

A multi-actuator disk storage device has at least two actuators respectively mounting plural product heads. Servo writing is performed using the product heads themselves. A first servo write operation is performed that includes operating a product head of the first actuator as a first clock head to generate first clock reference information for the product heads of the second actuator, which are operated as servo write heads to perform servo writing of disk areas associated with the second actuator using the first clock reference information. To servo write disk areas associated with the first actuator, a second servo write operation is performed. This operation includes operating a product head of the second actuator as a second clock head to generate second clock reference information for the product heads of the first actuator, which are operated as a servo write heads to perform servo writing using the second clock reference information.

Servo write timing generation in a multi-actuator disk drive

A flexible cable consists of trace conductors disposed on a first flexible insulating substrate, and a second flexible insulating upper substrate. Holes are placed on one of the substrates to expose the central conductor. The cable is then washed and sputter deposited with a thin gold film of a thickness of about 10 angstroms. Finally, an aluminum layer of thickness of more than 100 angstroms is sputtered over the cable. The aluminum sputter layer is connected to the central conductor and then they are both electrically grounded. A cost-effective method of making such cable to solve the adhesion problem of the aluminum coating in the prior art.

Conductive coating of flexible circuits for ils transmission lines

A method and means for performing logical-combining functions such as XOR operations in a RAID 3 or 5 array or a combinational configuration of disk drives. The logical combining occurs below the device attachment interface and is used in generating new parity for write update operations and data rebuilding. Each disk drive is modified to use a segmented and address synchronized buffer in the write and read paths, and a logical circuit that combines the data in the write path before buffering with the data in the read buffer as it is read out from the buffer. The logically combined result is presented at the device read path interface. The combined data from a first disk drive interface is introduced into the write path of a second path through the second device interface and the logical combining repeated ad seriatim, the device interfaces being connectable in a daisy-chain manner and configurable by array controller commands.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

George Anthony Dunn