Seagate Technology Incorporated

Jonathan Harrington Ormsby

Abhay Tejmal Kataria

Clifton James Williamson

LingZhi Yang

Frank Dwight Willems

A background operation is internally triggered by firmware of a disk drive. During a training phase defined by a first time period, access latency of host commands is monitored during rotational position sorting command selection. During a sorting phase after the training phase, a sorting threshold is defined based on the access latencies measured during the training phase. The background command is selected for execution in the sorting phase if the seek and rotational latency is less than the sorting threshold.

Apparatus and method for executing background operations using rotational position sorting

Herein is disclosed a method and apparatus for controlling power consumption of a disc drive in a portable computer based upon statistical characteristics of recent user disc access. This is accomplished by a disc drive that initially instantiates a set of thresholds, each of which govern transition into a corresponding power consumption mode. Next, the disc drive measures, at intervals, the time span since the disc drive was last issued a command. Prior to receipt of a new command by the disc drive, the disc drive is progressively transitioned into lower power consumption modes as the measured time span since the last command was issued meets each successive threshold. Following receipt of a new command by the disc drive, the threshold governing transition in to the next lower power consumption mode is adjusted based upon the measured time span.

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Boulder, CO, United States of America

Jonathan Harrington Ormsby