Method and apparatus for reducing power consumption by a disk drive through disk block relocation

• Main Authors: COULSON; RICK, GRIMSRUD; KNUT
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 28.07.1998
• Edition: 6
• Subjects: CALCULATING; CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES IN INFORMATION ANDCOMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES [ICT], I.E. INFORMATION ANDCOMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AIMING AT THE REDUCTION OF THIR OWNENERGY USE; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; INFORMATION STORAGE; INFORMATION STORAGE BASED ON RELATIVE MOVEMENT BETWEEN RECORDCARRIER AND TRANSDUCER; PHYSICS; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS; TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINSTCLIMATE CHANGE

An apparatus is programmed with a plurality of programming instructions for generating, if possible, an alternative disk block allocation for a current disk block allocation that will yield reduced overall power consumption for a sequence of disk accesses. In some embodiments, the programming instructions include the logic for tracing the sequence of disk accesses to determine the current disk block allocation, the logic for generating the alternative disk block allocation, if possible, using the trace results, and the logic for effectuating the alternate disk block allocation, if generated. In one particular embodiment, the logic for generating the alternative disk block allocation employs a random search approach, while in another embodiment, the logic for generating the alternative disk block allocation employs a heuristic approach.