APPARATUS, METHOD AND PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR A MULTI-CONTROLLER AND MULTI-ACTUATOR STORAGE DEVICE
First Claim
1. A data storage device comprising:
- a housing;
at least one data storage disk rotatably mounted within said housing;
at least a first actuator arm assembly and at least a second actuator arm assembly, said at least first actuator arm assembly and said at least second actuator arm assembly being coupled to said housing, said at least first actuator arm assembly carrying a read-write head for both reading data from and writing data to said at least one data storage disk, said at least second actuator arm assembly carrying a read-only head for only reading data from said at least one data storage disk;
at least a first data storage device interface associated with said at least first actuator arm assembly and at least a second data storage device interface associated with said at least second actuator arm assembly; and
a common hard drive controller.
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Abstract
A data storage device, method and program product for high data transfer and access rate is disclosed. The data storage device includes a housing wherein at least one data storage disk is rotatably mounted. The housing further includes at least two actuator arm assemblies, each actuator arm assembly carrying a head for reading data from or writing data to the data storage disks. According to the invention the data storage device housing further includes a plurality of device interfaces, one device interface being associated to each of the actuator arm assemblies, and a common hard drive controller. Each of the plurality of device interfaces includes at least one hardware selection switch to configure the respective device interfaces for either read and write mode or read-only mode.
22 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A data storage device comprising:
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a housing;
at least one data storage disk rotatably mounted within said housing;
at least a first actuator arm assembly and at least a second actuator arm assembly, said at least first actuator arm assembly and said at least second actuator arm assembly being coupled to said housing, said at least first actuator arm assembly carrying a read-write head for both reading data from and writing data to said at least one data storage disk, said at least second actuator arm assembly carrying a read-only head for only reading data from said at least one data storage disk;
at least a first data storage device interface associated with said at least first actuator arm assembly and at least a second data storage device interface associated with said at least second actuator arm assembly; and
a common hard drive controller. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. An information storage system, comprising:
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a network data storage unit having a data storage device, said data storage device having a first interface associated with a read-write head configured to read data from and write data to said data storage device, said data storage device further having a second interface associated with a read-only head configured to only read data from said data storage device; and
a network server configured to communicate with said data storage device via said first interface and said second interface of said data storage device, said first interface being configured to read data from and write data to said data storage device via said read-write head associated with said first interface, wherein a first client connected to said network server via said first interface of said data storage device is able to both read data from and write data to said data storage device via said read-write head associated with said first interface, and wherein a client connected to said network server via said second interface of said data storage device is able to only read data from said data storage device via said read-only head associated with said second interface. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A method of storing and accessing data from a data storage device, said method comprising the steps of:
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providing a data storage device comprising a first interface associated with a read-write head configured to read data from and write data to said data storage device, said data storage device further having a second interface associated with a read-only head configured to only read data from said data storage device;
connecting at least a first computing device to said first interface for exchanging data and transmitting commands to and from said first computing device, wherein said first computing device connected can both read data from and write data to said data storage device; and
connecting at least a second computing device to said second interface for accessing data and transmitting commands to and from said at least second computing device, wherein said second computing device connected can only read data from said data storage device. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification