Maxtor Corporation

Quantum Corporation

Nick Horgan

Bruce Douglas Buch

Timothy Proch

Diana L Langer

Justin J Koller

Russell W Brown

James David Sawin

John A Scaramuzzo

Festus Adelabu

Brian Nugent

A non-volatile storage subsystem comprises a media I/O controller, a media access channel, and movable storage media. A non-volatile disk storage subsystem bas a read channel coupling a disk controller to a disk head assembly. A read channel interfacing subsystem is provided as part of the storage subsystem, and the read channel interfacing subsystem interfaces a disk controller to the read channel. The read channel interfacing subsystem comprises a set of process units and a pipeline manager.

Data transfer scheme for efficiently moving data through a high latency media access channel

A method of storing data on a surface of a storage disk, the data being capable of verifying an identity of the surface, includes determining first check data from first alignment correction data associated with a first storage surface. The method also includes determining second check data from second alignment correction data associated with a second storage surface such that the second check data is different from the first check data if the first and second alignment correction data are identical. The method further includes writing the first and second check data to the first and second storage surfaces in association with the first and second alignment correction data, respectively.

Disk drive head-select verification

A method and circuit for controlling a FIFO buffer such that the buffer can accommodate more than one data block simultaneously without overlapping data between adjacent data blocks. The FIFO buffer has a read-pointer address register and a write-pointer address register and a bank of write-capture registers including at least a first pair and a second pair. The first pair of registers captures and saves the write-pointer addresses associated with the beginning and ending of a first data block written to the FIFO buffer register while the second pair of registers captures and saves the write-pointer addresses associated with the beginning and ending of a second data block written to the FIFO buffer. The first pair and second pair alternate in capturing and saving beginning and ending addresses of a plurality of data blocks written to the FIFO buffer. In reading data from the FIFO buffer, the read pointer address register is loaded with the previously saved write-pointer address associated with the beginning of each data block that is subsequently read. Since both the beginning and ending write-pointer addresses associated with each data block are captured and saved, the system reading from the FIFO buffer delineates between adjacent data blocks, thereby eliminating data overlap or FIFO interruption.

Method and circuit for controlling a first-in-first-out (FIFO) buffer using a bank of FIFO address registers capturing and saving beginning and ending write-pointer addresses

A method of data transfer in a data processing system having at least one source buffer and at least one destination buffer. The source buffer includes a plurality of data blocks, each data block having an address and being for storage of data including an identifier uniquely identifying that data block. The destination buffer includes a plurality of data blocks corresponding to the data blocks of the source buffer, each destination block having an address and being for storage of data. Each source block identifier is a function of a corresponding destination block address. Transferring data from the source buffer to the destination buffer includes: (a) obtaining the address of a data block in the destination buffer to transfer data into; (b) obtaining the address of a corresponding data block in the source buffer to transfer data from; and (c) checking the integrity of said addresses before data transfer, including: (i) retrieving the source block identifier in the source block via the source block address; (ii) generating an expected identifier value for the source block from the address of the destination block via said function relation between the source block identifier and the destination block address; (iii) comparing the expected identifier value with the retrieved identifier value; and (iv) if there is a mismatch, signaling an error condition representing corruption of one or more of the source block and the destination block addresses.

Method for preventing transfer of data to corrupt addresses

Momentary contact with a defect site of a data storage disk or free particle by a magnetoresistive read element of a flying head causes momentary heating and unwanted increase in element resistance (thermal asperity) which can disrupt hard disk drive data reading operations. Since the disk carries a predetermined data format, the disk drive controller correlates location of a thermal asperity to the format and thereupon selects from several available thermal asperity recovery methods a method most likely to minimize thermal asperity effect upon disk drive operation during rereading of data at the thermal asperity location.

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Marlboro, MA, United States of America

Nick Horgan