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:
Dec. 17, 2002
Filed:
Sep. 12, 2000
James A. McDonald, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Richard J. Biskup, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
3ware, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
A controller and an associated method, which may be embodied within a disk array system, are disclosed for verifying, the integrity of command data written to a disk drive (preferably an Advanced Technology Attachment or ATA drive) before such command data is used to execute a command. The controller, which may be implemented in automated hardware or firmware residing external to the disk drive, initially writes the command data to the disk drive, and then reads back and verifies this data prior to initiating execution of the command. If the written-out and read-back command data are consistent, the controller initiates execution of the command; otherwise, the controller enters into an error state that prevents the potentially corrupt command data from being used by the disk drive. The controller may also read a status code from the disk drive more than once to reduce the likelihood of misread status information.