Disk drive with nonvolatile memory for storage of failure-related data
US8015433B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Sep 13, 2006 |
| Grant date | Sep 6, 2011 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jan 27, 2030 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG11B20/18
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A disk drive that includes nonvolatile memory monitors the drive's reliability-related parameters to detect real or potential failure events, and records failure-related data in nonvolatile memory, rather than in reserved areas of the disks. The monitoring may be by running a diagnostic routine or by regular or periodic monitoring of disk drive sensors, like temperature and shock sensors. The failure events to be monitored and recorded may include defective data sectors. When a new defective sector is detected after the disk drive has been put into operation, that defective sector is taken out of service and its logical block address (LBA) is mapped to a memory space in the nonvolatile memory rather to a reserved spare sector on the disk. When a read or write command is received for an LBA range that includes the defective sector's LBA, the defective sector is skipped while the whole LBA range of the command is processed and the user data for the defective sector's LBA is read from or written to the mapped memory space in the nonvolatile memory.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.