Interlaced magnetic recording band isolation
AssigneeSeagate Technology LLC
InventorsWei Loon Ng, Brian T. Edgar
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and apparatus for allocating logical sectors and bands to store data on interlaced magnetic recording tracks. The systems and methods include formatting a data storage medium to include a plurality of bands, each band of the plurality of bands including a plurality of tracks, the plurality of tracks including a subset of top tracks interlaced with a subset of bottom tracks, and each track of the plurality of tracks including a number of sectors, formatting a first band of the plurality of bands, determining an isolation region of the first band, and formatting a second band of the plurality of bands responsive to determining the isolation region of the first band.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- formatting a preliminary band of a data storage medium such that a subset of bottom tracks are configured to store data and none of an interlaced subset of top tracks are configured to store data;
- iteratively reformatting the preliminary band such that the subset of bottom tracks is configured to store one fewer sectors than a prior iteration of the preliminary band, and the subset of top tracks is configured to store one sector more than the prior iteration of the preliminary band, a number of sectors configured to store data in the band being kept constant, and discarding from the preliminary band any bottom track no longer configured to store data;
- and
- finalizing the format of a band when an isolation region can be formatted comprising no more than one entire track or circumferentially complementary portions of two adjacent tracks.
A controller for a disc drive assembly configured to format a data storage medium of the assembly, the controller configured to:
- format a preliminary band such that a subset of bottom tracks are configured to store data and none of a subset of top tracks are configured to store data;
- iteratively reformat the preliminary band by discarding from the preliminary band any bottom track no longer configured to store data such that the subset of bottom tracks is configured to store one fewer sectors than a prior iteration of the preliminary band, and the subset of top tracks is configured to store one sector more than the prior iteration of the preliminary band, a number of sectors configured to store data in the band being kept constant;
- and
- finalize the format of a band when an isolation region can be formatted comprising no more than one entire track or circumferentially complementary portions of two adjacent tracks.
A controller for formatting a data storage medium, the controller comprising:
- means to format a preliminary band such that a subset of bottom tracks are configured to store data and none of a subset of top tracks are configured to store data;
- means to iteratively reformat the preliminary band by discarding from the preliminary band any bottom track no longer configured to store data such that the subset of bottom tracks is configured to store one fewer sectors than a prior iteration of the preliminary band, and the subset of top tracks is configured to store one sector more than the prior iteration of the preliminary band, a number of sectors configured to store data in the band being kept constant;
- and
- means to finalize the format of a band when an isolation region can be formatted comprising no more than one entire track or circumferentially complementary portions of two adjacent tracks.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.