Variable power consumption levels in a hard disk drive
First Claim
1. An apparatus comprising:
- a first terminal configured to connect to an AC power supply;
a second terminal configured to connect to a battery; and
a hard disk drive system coupled to receive power from at least one of the first terminal and second terminal, the hard disk drive configured to increase power consumption in a high performance mode when the AC power supply is connected to the first terminal relative to a low performance mode when the AC power is disconnected from the first terminal and the battery is connected to the second terminal.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Attributes of a hard disk drive are stepped between different power consumption levels to optimize the trade-off between minimizing power consumption and maximizing performance depending on whether AC or battery power is used. One attribute is the clock speed which can be changed for a number of disk drive components including the processor, the external interface bus and the memory interface bus. The system power supply voltage can further be changed in a number of components integrated together on an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC). Further, spindle motor rotation speed can be changed, or the spindle motor spun-down. Further, actuator movement by the VCM can be controlled to provide faster movement during track seek operations when high performance is desired. Additionally, write-back caching parameters are adjusted based on the source of power for the hard drive, be it battery, AC power, or a combination.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. An apparatus comprising:
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a first terminal configured to connect to an AC power supply;
a second terminal configured to connect to a battery; and
a hard disk drive system coupled to receive power from at least one of the first terminal and second terminal, the hard disk drive configured to increase power consumption in a high performance mode when the AC power supply is connected to the first terminal relative to a low performance mode when the AC power is disconnected from the first terminal and the battery is connected to the second terminal. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A disk drive system comprising:
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an electric motor connected to enable data to be read from a rotatable disk; and
a motor driver connected to apply current to the electric motor to obtain a desired operation speed of the motor, and to receive a power conservation mode signal, wherein a first speed is selected when the power conservation mode signal indicates a high performance mode, and wherein a second speed less than the first rotation speed is selected when the power conservation mode signal indicates a low performance mode. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12)
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13. A hard disk drive system comprising:
a clock signal generation circuit connected to selectively provide clock signals to one or more components of the hard disk drive, wherein a first one of the clock signals is provided having a first clock rate when the disk drive system is in a high performance mode, and wherein a second one of the clock signals is provided having a second clock rate less which is less than the first clock rate when the disk drive system is in a low performance mode to reduce power consumption by the hard disk drive. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
Specification