Patent · US Expired

Disk drive memory

US4914656A · kind A · utility

210Cited by
6References
64Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJun 28, 1988
Grant dateApr 3, 1990
Priority date
Expiry dateJun 28, 2008

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG11B20/1833
  • WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

The disk drive memory of the present invention uses a large plurality of small form factor disk drives to implement an inexpensive, high performance, high reliability disk drive memory that emulates the format and capability of large form factor disk drives. The plurality of disk drives are switchably interconnectable to form parity groups of N+1 parallel connected disk drives to store data thereon. The N+1 disk drives are used to store the N segments of each data word plus a parity segment. In addition, a pool of backup disk drives is maintained to automatically substitute a replacement disk drive for a disk drive in a parity group that fails during operation.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.