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:
Feb. 19, 2002
Filed:
Dec. 10, 1997
Robert Beverley Basham, Tucson, AZ (US);
Scott Milton Fry, Tucson, AZ (US);
John James Gniewek, Tucson, AZ (US);
Steven Douglas Johnson, Tucson, AZ (US);
Steven Bennett Wilson, Tucson, AZ (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Optimizing the retrieval of blocks of data from a tape media of a longitudinal serpentine tape drive. A device block map (DBM) is retrieved from the tape media and stored in memory. The DBM comprises a table having one or more rows and one or more columns for each block of data stored on the tape media. The columns are selected from the group comprising a wrap column, a position column, a logical block column, and a file identifier column. One or more retrieval paths for requested blocks of data are determined from an image of the physical layout of the requested blocks on the tape media generated by linear interpolation of the DBM stored in memory. Each of the retrieval paths comprises an ordered sequence of the blocks of data and the manner in which the tape media is to be traversed to accomplish the retrieval of the ordered sequence. A sum of distances is determined for each of the retrieval paths and an optimal one of the retrieval paths is selected based on the determined sum of distances. Thereafter, the blocks of data are retrieved from tape media using the optimal retrieval path.