Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.v.

Robert Anton Steinbach

Adam Michael Espeseth

Trevor James Briggs

Christopher David Wiederholt

Commands in a queue in a hard disk drive (HDD) are selected based on a benefit of providing either an optimized throughput or an optimized number of commands per second execution, as opposed to a simple shortest access time first (SATF) selection method.

System and method for selecting command for execution in HDD based on benefit

A method and apparatus is provided which reduces the equipment and time requirements for hard disk drive performance testing during manufacturing. This invention executes self-contained performance testing code that resides within the drive's manufacturing firmware, rather than relying on external testers. The invention involves exercising the drive's enqueue, dequeue, and command execution firmware, as well as the physical process of reading and writing data by simulating the host interface in code. The invention enqueues commands that typify the desired workload, allows a command ordering algorithm to sort the commands for execution, and allows the drive side code to execute the commands just as if an external host interface were attached. The invention is advantageous because the performance testing can be done by only applying power to the drive. The present invention also lends itself to performance tuning that can be done in manufacturing, to reduce drive-to-drive performance variations.

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East Bethel, MN, United States of America

Robert Anton Steinbach