EP0475639A2
Expired / Lapsed
EP
⏱️ 0.0 years remaining
Hard disk emulator
Assignee: JFE Steel Corp
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Filing: 1991-08-29
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2011-08-29
Abstract
Abstract A hard disk emulator (2) useful as a computer auxiliary memory device, comprising a hard disk drive (4) or non-volatile memory used as a cache memory together with an optical disk drive (5) as a main memory and an emulation unit (3) located among a host computer (1), the optical disk drive (5), and the hard disk drive (4) or non-volatile memory and operable in response to requests for writing and reading of data by the host computer (1) utilizing the hard disk drive (4) or non-volatile memory as the cache memory, whereby use of dedicated hardware and software can be eliminated upon incorporation of the optical disk drive (5) and low throughput of the optical disk drive (5) can be compensated.
Inventors
- 👤 Kaname Tokyo Head Office Sawada
- 👤 Yoshitaka Tokyo Head Office Takahashi
- 👤 Masaaki Tokyo Head Office Kanagawa
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-10-29 16:42
CPC Classifications
G; G06; G06F; G06F3/00; G06F3/06; G06F3/0601; G06F3/0602; G06F3/0604; G06F3/0607; G06F12/00; G06F12/02; G06F12/08; G06F12/0802; G06F12/0866; G06F3/0628; G06F3/0662; G06F3/0664; G06F3/0668; G06F3/0671; G06F3/0683; G06F3/0685; G06F2212/00; G06F2212/31; G06F2212/312
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 11
Claim 1
Independent Claim
91 words
A hard disk emulator (2) comprising: an optical disk drive (5) as a main memory, a hard disk drive (4) or non-volatile memory used as a cache memory together with said optical disk drive (5), and an emulation unit (3) located among a host computer (1), said optical disk drive (5), and said hard disk drive (4) or non-volatile memory to be operable in response to requests of writing and reading of data from the host computer (1), using said hard disk drive (4) or non-volatile memory as the cache memory.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
113 words
A hard disk emulator according to claim 1 wherein said emulation unit (2) comprises a data transfer control circuit (8) for controlling data transfer among said host computer (1), said optical disk drive (5), and said hard disk drive (4) or non-volatile memory, a circuit (6, 7) for controlling interfacing between said host computer (1) and a disk drive (4, 5) side, a CPU (10) for performing background processing between said hard disk drive (4) or non-volatile memory and said optical disk drive (5), a work memory (12) mainly used as a general work area for said CPU (10), a memory back-up (13) for the work memory (12), and a programming ROM (11).
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
66 words
A hard disk emulator according to claim 1 wherein said hard disk drive (4) or non-volatile memory includes a fixed cache area (A10a) for temporarily recording therein data at successive emulation addresses including emulation addresses frequently accessed and a normal cache area (A12a) for temporarily properly recording therein data other than said data at successive emulation addresses at cache addresses where no data has been written.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
33 words
A hard disk emulator according to claim 3 wherein fixedly defined predetermined successive emulation addresses are allocated as the successive emulation addresses of the data temporarily recorded in said fixed cache area (A10a).
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
55 words
A hard disk emulator according to claim 3 wherein access frequency for each emulation address of data accessed by said host computer (1) is estimated, and successive emulation addresses including at least high access frequency emulation addresses are allocated as the successive emulation addresses of the data temporarily recorded in said fixed cache area (A10a).
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
96 words
A hard disk emulator according to claim 3 wherein memory capacity of the fixed cache area (A10a) of said hard disk drive (4) or non-volatile memory used as the cache area upon the emulation is defined to be more than the memory capacity of an area of said optical disk drive (5) in which data is actually recorded, and all emulation addresses corresponding to the area of said optical disk drive (5) in which data is actually recorded are allocated as the successive emulation addresses of the data temporarily recorded in said fixed cache area (A10a).
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
147 words
An address information integrating method in a hard disk emulator (2) comprising the steps of: emulating interface specifications in conformity with predetermined hard disk drive (4) specification utilizing an optical disk drive (5) as a main memory and a hard disk drive (4) or non-volatile memory including a cache area for temporarily recording data accessed by a host computer (1) properly using cache addresses where no data has been written; comparing with each other a plurality of pieces of address information which are or have been written in a cache address table upon said emulation; determining whether or not cache data corresponding to the pieces of the address information can be integrated with each other in their state where they have been written in said cache area; and integrating at least a plurality of corresponding pieces of the address information if they are determined to be integrable.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
62 words
An address information integrating method according to claim 7 wherein capability of integration is determined from whether or not the pieces of the address information are continuous in their state where they have been written in said cache area, and if they are determined to have been continuous, then at least a plurality of corresponding pieces of the address information are concatenated.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
72 words
An address information integrating method according to claim 7 wherein capability of integration is determined from whether or not address information in certain cache data includes therein address information of cache data recorded prior to the certain cache data, and if the certain address information is determined to include the prior recorded address information, then the certain cache data is made valid to include the prior recorded address information as it is.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
124 words
A normal termination detecting method of data writing in an optical disk drive (5) comprising the steps of: caching data in a hard disk drive (4) or non-volatile memory upon writing the data in an optical disk drive (5) as a main memory from a host computer (1), tentatively accessing, through said caching, the optical disk drive (5) following an address of data accessed by the host computer (1) even when such data is not needed to be immediately written in the optical disk drive (5), and determining whether or not the writing of the data from the host computer (1) is normally terminated on the basis of normal termination of said caching of the data and of normal termination of said tentatively accessing.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
20 words
A normal termination detecting method according to claim 10 wherein said data caching and said tentatively accessing are parallely executed.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
No citation records indexed.
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