JP2980015B2 - Magnetic disk drive - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a magnetic disk drive, and more particularly to a magnetic disk drive that requires updating the firmware of a magnetic disk drive.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a magnetic disk drive of this type, a ROM (Read / O
nly Memory) is mounted on a magnetic disk drive via a detachable connector. In addition, with the rapid advance of technology, the development of firmware with improved performance has been achieved early, and with this, manufacturers are increasingly providing firmware update services for magnetic disk drives already sold. . Here, the number of devices to receive this service is enormous.

[0003]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional example, when the firmware is upgraded, a situation arises in which the ROM for the firmware mounted on the magnetic disk drive must be replaced manually. In such a case, the number of devices to be replaced is enormous as described above, and since it is necessary to perform each of a plurality of mounted magnetic disk drives even when focusing on only a single system, a large number of engineers There is a disadvantage that it is necessary to mobilize or to secure a sufficient working time. Also, in practice, this type of magnetic disk device is often used for large general-purpose machines that integrate financial terminals, for example, and stopping the device for a long time has a large effect on society as well as one company. However, there has been an inconvenience that the service for updating the developed firmware is not smoothly promoted.

[0004] Furthermore, the engineer to be updated is a ROM.
It requires a great deal of labor and time for the replacement work and confirmation,
In the process, human errors such as a mistake in inserting a ROM and a mistake in assembling a module may occur, so that there is a disadvantage that work reliability is lacking.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a magnetic disk drive which can solve the disadvantages of the prior art and, in particular, is suitable for rapidly and accurately updating firmware mounted on a magnetic disk drive. With that purpose.

[0006]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there are provided a plurality of magnetic disk drives which read out firmware from individually provided rewritable nonvolatile memories and start the firmware. Also, firmware transmission means for transmitting new firmware read out from a predetermined storage medium in units of unit data, and unit data provided in each of the plurality of magnetic disk drives and sequentially updating the unit data received from the firmware transmission means to the nonvolatile memory. And a plurality of firmware updating means. Among these, the firmware update unit has a transmission request function of outputting a transmission request signal of a predetermined level to the firmware transmission unit each time the unit data update process ends. Further, the firmware transmission means has a response transmission function of transmitting unit data every time a transmission request signal of a predetermined level is received,
The configuration is adopted.

According to the present invention, the new firmware stored in the upper memory is divided into unit data and transmitted to the firmware updating means. Firmware update means
The received unit data is updated in the non-volatile memory, and upon completion of the update, a transmission request signal of a predetermined level is output immediately. The firmware transmission unit that has received the transmission request signal of the predetermined level immediately transmits the next unit data.
By repeating this, the new firmware is updated in the nonvolatile memory.

In the present invention, the plurality of firmware updating units are connected in series with the firmware transmitting unit. Furthermore, in the present invention
Adopts a configuration in which, when a transmission request signal of a predetermined level is output from all of the plurality of firmware update units, an AND circuit that transmits the transmission request signal of the predetermined level to the firmware transmission unit is provided. With these, the above-mentioned object is to be achieved.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG.
This will be described with reference to FIG.

The magnetic disk device shown in FIG. 1 has a plurality of magnetic disk drives that read firmware from individually rewritable nonvolatile memory 2E and start the firmware. Also, a firmware transmitting unit 1 for transmitting new firmware read from a predetermined storage medium in units of unit data D, and a unit data D provided in each of the plurality of magnetic disk drives and received from the firmware transmitting unit 1 are non-volatile. A plurality of firmware updating means 2, 2,... For sequentially updating the memory 2E are provided. The firmware update means 2 transmits the transmission request signal Tx of a predetermined level every time the update processing of the unit data D ends.
Is transmitted to the firmware transmitting means 1. Further, the firmware transmission unit 1 receives the unit data D every time the transmission request signal Tx of a predetermined level is received.
And a response transmission function for transmitting

In this embodiment, the plurality of firmware updating means 2, 2,... Are connected in series with the firmware transmitting means 1 (hereinafter, referred to as "wired connection").
). Further, when the transmission request signal Tx of a predetermined level is output from all of the plurality of firmware update units 2, 2,..., The firmware transmission unit 1 transmits the transmission request signal Tx of the predetermined level to the firmware transmission unit 1.
Are transmitted in parallel.

More specifically, in this embodiment, the firmware transmitting means 1 includes a higher-level memory 1A in which new firmware read from a predetermined storage medium such as a magnetic tape is stored in advance, and A transmission control unit 1B for transmitting the read new firmware to the firmware updating unit 2 by dividing the new firmware for each unit data, an attention control unit 1C for outputting an attention signal S of a predetermined level to the firmware updating unit 2, and an output from the firmware updating unit 2. And a transmission request monitoring unit 1D that monitors the transmission request signal Tx to be transmitted.

The upper memory 1 is a random access memory (RAM). In addition, the transmission control unit 1B
A transmission request monitoring unit 1D comprising a microcomputer;
Has a function of transmitting the new firmware in units of one byte of unit data D each time it receives the high-level transmission request signal Tx. The attention control unit 1C
A function of setting the attention signal S to a low level before the transmission control unit 1B transmits the unit data D, and a function of setting the attention signal S to the high level every time the transmission request signal Tx from the firmware updating unit 2 is set to the low level. And a function to set it. Here, the unit data D is serial data.

On the other hand, the firmware updating means 2 is provided, for example, in a drive control circuit provided for each magnetic disk drive, and includes a receiving unit 2A for receiving the unit data D transmitted from the firmware transmitting means 1, and a firmware transmitting means 1 An attention monitoring unit 2B that monitors the attention signal S from the CPU, a transmission request output unit 2C that outputs a transmission request signal Tx to the firmware transmission unit 1, and a unit data D received by the reception unit 2A is sequentially updated in the nonvolatile memory 2E. And an update control unit 2D.

The transmission request output unit 2C sets the transmission request signal Tx to a low level when the unit data D is received by the reception unit 2A, and changes the transmission request signal Tx when the updating process of the unit data D is completed. It is set to high level. The update control unit 2D is configured by a microcomputer, and controls the operation of the transmission request output unit 2C in addition to the update processing of the unit data D. Here, as the nonvolatile memory 2E of the firmware updating means 2, an electrically erasable and rewritable EEPROM is employed.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 1, one firmware transmitting means 1 and four firmware updating means 2 are connected in series. In particular, the transmission request signal Tx includes a wired AND circuit 3 (a low level when at least one of the connected transmission request output units 2C outputs a low level, and a high level when all output a high level). The firmware is transmitted to the firmware transmission means 1 via the communication terminal.
Further, the transmission control unit 1B is connected in series with each reception unit 2 of the firmware updating unit 2 by a signal line for serial data. Further, the attention control unit 1C is connected in series with each attention monitoring unit 2B of the firmware updating unit 2, and the transmission request monitoring unit 1D is connected in series with each transmission request output unit 2C.

Next, the overall operation of the above embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 shows a time chart of signals transmitted to each connection signal line in the embodiment shown in FIG. Here, transmission request signal # 1, transmission request signal # 2
Indicates a transmission request signal output from any two of the four firmware update units 2.

In the execution stage of the firmware update process, first, the firmware transmission means 1
B outputs a command for erasing the current firmware stored in the nonvolatile memory 2E to all the firmware updating means 2. The firmware updating means 2 receiving the erasure command erases the contents of the EEPROM 2E, and when the erasure is completed, notifies the transmission request output unit 2 of the erasure.
A report is sent to the firmware transmission means 1 via C.

When receiving the erasure report from all the connected firmware update units 2, the firmware transmission unit 1 sets the attention signal S to low level by the attention control unit 1C, and sends the new firmware 1 byte from the upper memory 1A. The data is read and output from the transmission control unit 1B to the firmware updating means 2 (reference numeral a in FIG. 2). When the receiving unit 2A of the firmware updating unit 2 receives the unit data D for one byte, each of the transmission request output units 2A
C sets the transmission request signal Tx to low level (reference b). The update control unit 2D writes the unit data D received by the receiving unit 2A into each of the nonvolatile memories 2E. On the other hand, the attention control unit 1 confirms that the transmission request signal Tx has been set to the low level by the transmission request monitoring unit 1D.
C sets the attention signal S to a high level (reference c).

The update control unit 2D stores 1 in the nonvolatile memory 2E.
When the byte writing is completed, the transmission request output unit 2C sets the transmission request signal Tx to high level. However, since the transmission request signal Tx received by the transmission request monitoring unit 1D is set to a high level when there is at least one transmission request output unit 2C outputting a low level because the connection is made by the wired-and circuit 3, Is not performed (code d). On the other hand, when all the transmission request output units 2C output the high level, the transmission request signal Tx received by the transmission request monitoring unit 1D is set to the high level (symbol e).

The transmission request monitoring section 1D transmits a transmission request signal T
After confirming that x has become high level, the firmware transmission unit 1 sets the attention signal S to low level by the attention control unit 1C, reads the next unit data D of 1 byte from the upper memory 1A, and The data is transmitted to the firmware updating means 2 in the same manner as the 1-byte data (reference f). The firmware updating means 2 writes the data in each of the nonvolatile memories 2E in the same manner as the one-byte data. Thereafter, similarly, the upper memory 1A
The same process is repeated until all the new firmware data stored in is updated to the firmware updating means 2.

Thus, when the update of the new firmware is completed, each magnetic disk drive is started by the updated new firmware at the next system startup.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the new firmware stored in the upper memory 1A is updated to the non-volatile memory 2E by the firmware updating means 2, so it is necessary to replace the non-volatile memory 2E manually. Therefore, the firmware can be updated quickly and accurately.

In particular, since the exchange of the unit data D is performed by the handshake procedure based on the transmission request signal Tx, the firmware transmission means sets the firmware update means to end the data update processing and to be ready for data reception. Then, the next data can be transmitted immediately, and the communication time can be reduced. As a result, the time required for upgrading the firmware of the magnetic disk device (updating the version number) can be reduced.

Since the firmware transmitting means 1 can simultaneously update the new firmware to the plurality of firmware updating means 2, 2,... Connected in series, regardless of the number of connected magnetic disk drives. The new firmware can be updated to all the magnetic disk drives in about one update time, so that the firmware update operation can be performed more quickly.

Further, the firmware transmitting means transmits the next data after all the firmware updating means are in a receivable state, so that each firmware updating unit can receive the data reliably, and the reliability of the serial communication is improved. Can be improved.

In addition, EEPR is used as a non-volatile memory.
Since the OM is adopted, even if new firmware is developed frequently due to acceleration of technological progress, the firmware can be updated not only once but also each time. Further, since the transmission control unit 1B transfers the firmware data one byte at a time, the receiving unit 2A of the firmware update unit 2 that receives the firmware data only needs to have a buffer for one byte. It can be provided at low cost.

Here, the firmware transmitting means and the firmware updating means do not need to be mounted in the same housing. For example, in a large-scale magnetic disk system including a disk control device and a plurality of magnetic disk devices connected to the disk control device, the firmware update unit may be mounted on the disk control device or a higher-level host device. The present invention also contemplates such a configuration.
In addition, an address is assigned to each magnetic disk drive, the firmware transmission means specifies an address of the magnetic disk drive to be updated as a header of new firmware data, and the firmware update is performed only to the firmware update means of the specified magnetic disk drive. The update may be performed. In such a case, a plurality of magnetic disk drives can be selectively updated, which is particularly convenient in a renewal update process when an update error occurs in only one of the magnetic disk drives. The upper memory may be a ROM card, a floppy disk, or the like.

[0029]

The present invention is constructed and functions as described above. According to this, serial communication is performed by the transmitting unit and the receiving unit handshake by the attention signal, so that all the receiving units are transmitted. The next data can be transmitted as soon as the data processing is completed and the data can be received, and the communication time can be reduced. As a result, the time required for upgrading the firmware of the magnetic disk device can be reduced. This is an important effect because this type of magnetic disk drive is used in large general-purpose machines and it is difficult to stop the drive for a long time. Indeed, the effect is greater.

In the present invention, the firmware transmitting means 1 can simultaneously update the new firmware to the plurality of firmware updating means 2, 2,... Connected in series. The new firmware can be updated in all the magnetic disk drives in about one update time regardless of the number of firmware, and thus the firmware update work can be performed more quickly.

Further, according to the present invention, the firmware transmitting means transmits the next data after all the firmware updating means are in a receivable state, so that each firmware updating means can surely receive the data, and Can be improved. This makes it possible to upgrade the firmware more reliably, leading to improved reliability and, in consideration of re-execution in case of failure, reduced maintenance time. An apparatus can be provided.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a time chart for explaining a firmware update operation of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Firmware transmission means 1A Upper memory 1B Transmission control unit 1C Attention control unit 1D Transmission request monitoring unit 2 Firmware updating unit 2A Receiving unit 2B Attention monitoring unit 2C Transmission request output unit 2D Update control unit 2E Non-volatile memory (EEPROM) 3 AND circuit

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] A rewritable non-volatile memo individually provided
Multiple magnetics that read firmware from the
A unit that has a disk drive and reads new firmware read from a given storage medium
Firmware transmission means for sending data separately for each data
And each of the plurality of magnetic disk drives is equipped with
The unit data received from the firmware transmission unit is
A plurality of firmware for sequentially updating the nonvolatile memory;
A update means, The firmware updating unit updates the unit data.
Each time the processing is completed, a transmission request signal of a predetermined level
Equipped with a transmission request function to output to the firmware transmission means
And the firmware transmitting means transmits the predetermined level.
A response for transmitting the unit data each time a request signal is received
With transmission functionMagnetic disk drive, The plurality of firmware updating means,
Connected in series with the All of the plurality of firmware update units are provided with the predetermined
When the transmission request signal of the level is output, the firmware
The transmission request signal of the predetermined level is transmitted to the hardware transmission means.
Disk having an AND circuit
apparatus.