US 6,745,283 B1Granted

Disk drive for dynamically allocating memory accessed concurrently by a host interface and a disk interface to facilitate large host commands

AssigneeWestern Digital Technologies, Inc.

InventorQuoc N. Dang

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Abstract

A disk drive is disclosed comprising a disk and a semiconductor memory comprising addressable locations for staging and caching data, wherein each addressable location having an allocation status. When a large write command is received from a host to write write-data to the disk, a disk controller dynamically allocates a plurality of the addressable locations relative to the size of the write command and the allocation status of the addressable locations. The write-data received from the host is stored in the dynamically allocated addressable locations while concurrently reading the write-data from the dynamically allocated addressable locations and writing the write-data to the disk. The dynamically allocated addressable locations are re-used for storing write-data received from the host after writing the write-data to the disk.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A disk drive comprising:

(a) a disk;
(b) a head actuated radially over the disk;
(c) a semiconductor memory comprising addressable locations for staging and caching data, wherein each addressable location having an allocation status;
and
(d) a disk controller for:
receiving a write command from a host to write write-data to the disk, the write-data comprising a first segment, a second segment and a third segment;
dynamically allocating a plurality of the addressable locations relative to the size of the write command and the allocation status of the addressable locations;
receiving the first segment of write-data from the host and storing the first segment of write-data in the dynamically allocated addressable locations;
receiving the second segment of write-data from the host and storing the second segment of write-data in the dynamically allocated addressable locations while concurrently reading the first segment of write-data from the dynamically allocated addressable locations and writing the first segment of write-data to the disk;
and
re-using the dynamically allocated addressable locations for storing the third segment of write-data received from the host after writing the first segment of write-data to the disk.

8 more elements

A method of processing host commands in a disk drive, the disk drive comprising a disk, a head actuated radially over the disk, a semiconductor memory comprising addressable locations for staging and caching data, wherein each addressable location having an allocation status, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving a write command from a host to write write-data to the disk, the write command comprising a first segment, a second segment and a third segment;
(b) dynamically allocating a plurality of the addressable locations relative to the size of the write command and the allocation status of the addressable locations;
(c) receiving the first segment of write-data from the host and storing the first segment of write-data in the dynamically allocated addressable locations;
(d) receiving the second segment of write-data from the host and storing the second segment of write-data in the dynamically allocated addressable locations while concurrently reading the first segment of write-data from the dynamically allocated addressable locations and writing the first segment of write-data to the disk;
and
(e) re-using the dynamically allocated addressable locations for storing the third segment of write-data received from the host after writing,the first segment of write-data to the disk.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.