Data recorder and method of access to data recorder

• US 6,292,878 B1
• Filed: 02/03/1998
• Issued: 09/18/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/1996
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Morioka, Yoshihiro, Hamai, Shinji, Kase, Hiroshi, Motomura, Naohisa
• Primary Examiner(s): Kim, Matthew
• Assistant Examiner(s): TZENG, FRED
• Application Number:
  US09/017,675
• Time in Patent Office: 1,323 Days
• Field of Search: 711/112, 711/114, 711/113, 711/209, 710/5, 710/62, 707/204, 714/7
• US Class Current: 711/209
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0613 in relation to throughput
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/064 Management of blocks
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0656 Data buffering arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD

Abstract

The present invention relates to a data recorder which chronologically records continuous data such as image data without interruption at high speed, a medium which stores the procedure of recording or reproducing in the data recorder as a program, and a method of accessing the data recorder. In one embodiment, the data recorder is equipped with a group of recording units, and each group unit has a SCSI adaptor and a hard disk. The hard disk is connected to the SCSI bus and the SCSI adaptor is connected to a PCI bus. With this construction, data to be recorded in the data recorder is split into units of a prescribed size and assigned and recorded on the group of recording units so as to utilize a plurality of hard disks as a single logical recording space.

Claims

1. A data recorder equipment with a recording unit composed of a host adaptor connected to a host bus and recording medium connected to the host adaptor, comprising:

a group of recording units composed of a plural number of sets of said recording unit,

an input proportioning means for splitting the data to be recorded into prescribed size units and assigning said split data to a plural number of recording media so that the respective recording media may become a single logical recording space, and

a recording means for issuing commands the respective host adaptors to transfer said assigned data in prescribed size to the respective recording media, wherein

said input proportioning means temporarily holds said split data in a memory in correspondence to the respective recording units, and then said recording means issues recording commands said respective recording media based on the state of saving in the memory, and

said input proportioning means records said split data one after another in a continuous space in said memory and records the addresses of the space in which said data is recorded in another space in said memory in correspondence to the respective recording units.

2. The data recorder as defined in claim 1, wherein said input proportioning means is further provided with a function of receiving input data.

3. The data recorded as defined in claim 1, wherein, upon completion of the data transfer in prescribed size to the recording medica, said recording commands are issued one by one subject to holding of the next data in prescribed size on the memory.

4. The data recorder as defined in claim 1, wherein, at the point in time when the data transfer in prescribed size is held on the memory, said recording commands are issued in the same number as an optionally decided number M or the number of units m of the data held on the memory in the range m<

M.

5. The data recorder as defined in claim 1, wherein the prescribed size of said split data is a fixed size used as unit of transmission.

6. The medium, characterized in that it records a program for having the whole or part of the respective control methods indicated in claims 1 or the function of the whole or part of the respective means executed by computer.

7. The data recorder as defined in claims 1, wherein the data input in said memory is a data input from a video recording &

reproduction device through I/0 adaptor.

8. The data recorder as defined in claim 7, wherein said video recording &

reproduction device outputs data of a size 4 times larger than the data size required for the indication of a single frame time on the display unit in said single frame time.

9. The data recorder as defined in claim 7, wherein said I/O adaptor is provided with a function of converting said data form adapted to VTR to a data form suitable for the data bus.

10. A data recorder equipped with recording unit composed of a host adaptor connected to a host bus and recording medium connected to the host adaptor, comprising:

a group of recording units composed of a plural number of sets of said recording unit,

a readout means for reading out the data, split and recorded in the respective recording media in such a way that a plural number of recording media constituting said group of recording units become a single logical recording space, as a series of data, and

an output means for outputting said readout data in that same order, wherein

said readouts means temporarily records the readout data in the memory sequentially and then the data is output by an output means.

11. A method of access to a data recorder equipped with a recording unit composed of a host adaptor connected to a host bus and recording medium connected to the host adaptor and constituting a group of recording units with a plural number of sets of said recording unit,

characterized in that the data to be recorded is split into prescribed size units and said split data are assigned to and recorded on a plural number of recording media so that the respective recording media may become a single logical recording space, wherein

said split data are temporarily held in a memory in correspondence to the respective recording units, and then recording commands to said respective recording media of data are issued based on the state of saving in the memory, and

said split data are recorded in a continuous space on said memory, and addresses of the continuous space in which are recorded said split data are assigned in another space on that memory corresponding to the respective recording units, in correspondence to said respective data recorders.

12. The method of access to data recorder as defined in claim 11, wherein, upon completion of the data transfer in prescribed size to the recording media, said recording commands are issued one by one at the point in time when the next data in prescribed size is held on the memory.

13. The method of access to data recorder as defined in claim 11, wherein, at the point in time when the data transfer in prescribed size is held on the memory, said recording commands are issued in the same number as an optionally decided number M or the number of units m of the data held on the memory in the range of m<

M.

14. The method of access to data recorder as defined in claim 11, wherein, in said stage of proportioning of input, the split data corresponding to the respective recording media are recorded in the corresponding respective recording media at the time when the number of split data stored in said continuous space on the memory became “

n”

(“

n”

is a natural number).

15. The method of access to data recorder as defined in claim 11, wherein the prescribed size of said data is a fixed size used as unit of transmission.

16. The method of access to data recorder equipped with a recording unit composed of a host adaptor connected to a host bus and recording medium connected to the host adaptor and constituting a group of recording units with a plural number of sets of said recording unit,

characterized in that the data, split and recorded in the respective recording media in such a way that said plural number of recording media may become a single logical recording space, are read out as a series of data, and the readout data are output in that same order, wherein

said readout data is temporarily recorded in the memory, and then output.

17. A data transmitter, comprising

an I/O adaptor for inputting and outputting specific data, requested for transfer, between a recording &

reproduction device and a data bus,

1^st asynchronous transfer means for asynchronously transferring the specific data output from said I/O adaptor to said data bus to temporarily store it in a 1^st memory means, and

2^nd asynchronous transfer means for asynchronously transferring, immediately after accumulation of data in prescribed size in said 1^st memory means, the data in certain size among said data in prescribed size to a 2^nd memory at specific timing, wherein

said data in prescribed size accumulated in said 1^st memory means is small at the start of said data transmission but becomes larger than an initial value with passage of time after the time of starting of a transmission.

18. The data transmitter, as defined in claim 17, wherein either one or both of said 1st asynchronous transfer or said 2nd asynchronous transfer are DMA transfer by bus master.

19. The data transmitter, as defined in claim 17, wherein said 2nd memory means is a storing means controlled by SCSI system, fiber channel system or IEEE system.

20. The data transmitter, as defined in claims 17, wherein said recording &

reproduction device is a recording &

reproduction device capable of recording &

reproducing DVC signals at a speed 4 times faster than the normal speed.

21. The data transmitter, as defined in either of claim 17, wherein said I/O adaptor is an interface which converts data transmitted through network into a data in PCI bus form or vice versa.

22. The data transmitter, as defined in either of claim 17, wherein said 1st memory means is the main storing means of the computer.

23. The data transmitter as defined in claim 17, wherein said 1st asynchronous transfer means checks at the time of said data transmission, the data size available for transfer per unit period and, in case the data size of said prescribed data exceeeds said data available for transfer, splits said prescribed data into data blocks of a size not exceeding said data size available for transfer, and enables said transmission with those split data blocks as units.

24. A data transmitter, comprising

an I/O adaptor for inputting and outputting specific data, requested for transfer, between a recording &

reproduction device and a data bus,

1^st asynchronous transfer means for asynchronous transferring the specific data output from said I/O adaptor to said data bus to temporarily store it in a 1^st memory means, and

2^nd asynchronous transfer means for asynchronous transferring, immediately after accumulation of data in prescribed size in said 1^st memory means, data in certain size among said data in prescribed size to a 2^nd memory at a specific timing, wherein

the data temporarily stored in said 1^st memory means is output and stored from said 1^st memory means to the recording &

reproduction device by said 1^st asynchronous transfer means.

25. A data transmitter, comprising

an I/O adaptor for inputting and outputting specific data, requested for transfer, between a recording &

reproduction device and a data bus,

1^st asynchronous transfer means for asynchronous transferring the specific data output from said I/O adaptor to said data bus to temporarily store it in a 1^st memory means, and

2^nd asynchronous transfer means for asynchronous transferring, immediately after accumulation of data in prescribed size in said 1^st memory means, data in certain size among said data in prescribed size to a 2^nd memory at a specific timing, wherein

said I/O adaptor is an interface which converts data in DVC form into data in host bus form or vice versa.