Patent · US Expired

Disk drive memory

US4989206A · kind A · utility

271Cited by
10References
58Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateJan 11, 1990
Grant dateJan 29, 1991
Priority date
Expiry dateJan 11, 2010

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
  • CPC primaryY10S360/903
  • 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.