Storage device with write barrier sensitive write commands and write barrier insensitive commands

US8006047B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V. · NL

Inventors

• Jorge Campello De Souza · Cupertino, US
• Frank R. Chu · Milpitas, US
• Chunqi Han · Pleasanton, US
• Anand Kulkarni · San Jose, US
• Donald J. Molaro · Cupertino, US
• Richard M. H. New · San Jose, US
• Marco Sanvido · Belmont, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jun 27, 2007
• Grant date: Aug 23, 2011
• Expiry date: Sep 24, 2029

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F12/0866
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

The invention is a storage device which implements a write barrier command and provides means for a host to designate other write commands as being sensitive or insensitive to the existence of write barrier commands. The device can optimize the execution of commands by changing the order of execution of write commands that are insensitive to write barrier command. In an embodiment of the invention a flag associated with the write command indicates whether the command is sensitive or insensitive to the existence of write barrier commands. In an embodiment of the invention the write barrier command can be implemented as a write command with a flag that indicates whether the command is a write barrier command. In one embodiment of the invention the queue of commands and data to be written to the media is stored in a non-volatile cache.