Radial positioning of data to improve hard disk drive reliability

In a rigid disk drive wherein data is stored as data files within a band of concentric tracks on rotating disks, with the band of concentric tracks comprising an inner band of contiguous tracks adjoining the inner radius of said band of concentric tracks and an outer band adjoining the outer radius of said band of concentric tracks, a method of adaptively allocating data file storage locations within said band of concentric tracks to cause a majority of data accesses to occur nearer the outer radius than the inner radius of said band of concentric tracks comprising

• reviewing the stored data files to determine, with respect to each, the number of accesses that have occurred during a predetermined number of the most recent power on hours;
• comparing the number of accesses to a threshold value;
• allocating data files where the number of accesses exceeded the threshold value to said outer band and data files with a fewer number of accesses than said threshold value to said inner band;
• and
• moving data files not currently stored the allocated band to the allocated band.

In a rigid disk drive wherein data is stored as data files within a band of concentric tracks, a method of adaptively allocating data file storage locations within said band of concentric tracks to cause a majority of data accesses to occur nearer the outer radius than the inner radius of said band of concentric tracks comprising

• reviewing the stored data files to determine, with respect to each, the number of accesses that have occurred during a predetermined period of power on hours;
• allocating the most frequently accesses data file to the storage location nearest the outer diameter of said band of concentric tracks;
• and
• allocating the remainder of the data files progressively radially outward within said band of data tracks in declining order with respect to the number of accesses.