The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 12, 2000
Filed:
Nov. 25, 1997
Mark Gregory Call, Longmont, CO (US);
Geoffrey Hungerford, Louisville, CO (US);
Bradley E Whitney, Lafayette, CO (US);
Storage Technology Corporation, Louisville, CO (US);
Abstract
The system for gap positioning optimization in a tape drive takes advantage of the presence of a pair of read heads, located one on either side of the write head, to precisely determine the boundary between the inter-block gap and the data blocks adjoining the inter-block gap. In particular, the servo mechanisms in the tape drive note the location of the boundary between the present data block and the inter-block gap formed a the end of the present data block. When the tape is repositioned between data read/write operations, this servo information is used to identify this boundary to initiate the subsequently received data read/write operation. A predetermined amount of inter-block gap is provided at the end of the data block to ensure that subsequently received data is not written on top of the present data block or the overwriting of the next data record begins at the beginning of the data block. The system for gap positioning optimization in a tape drive activates the upstream read head during the tape acceleration process to sense the location of this boundary. The upstream read head senses the presence of a region devoid of data, indicating the inter-block gap, thereby confirming the location of the boundary with more precision than the servo data indication, and positively verifying before the write operation that the selected block is the one desired.