JP2007134000A - Information processor and its control method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an information processor capable of more rapidly executing the protective operation of a disk unit when a free fall is detected. <P>SOLUTION: The information processor comprises a command output means which outputs a command for writing or reading-in of data to the disk unit 102, a number-of-commands setting means for setting the number of the commands temporarily stored in a memory region provided in the disk unit 102, a fall judgment means for performing the fall judgment based on the acceleration signal detected by an acceleration sensor 114, and a saving command output means which outputs a saving command to save the head of the disk unit to the disk unit when the fall is judged by the fall judgment means. The number-of-commands setting means reduces the setting of the number of the commands to be temporarily stored in the memory region of the disk unit 102 in a mode in which the saving command is effectively output as compared to the case the saving command is disabled. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus that controls a disk device, and more particularly to an information processing device that controls an access request to a disk device in accordance with the degree of urgency.

  Generally, in an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer (PC), necessary data is stored in a disk device such as an HDD (Hard Disk Drive) in order to execute various processes by a predetermined application program. .

  In such an information processing apparatus, a host computer (CPU) that controls the main control reads out necessary data from the disk device in accordance with the processing of the application program (service), and stores a calculation result in a memory. Access. When the disk device receives this memory access, if it is a read request, the disk device reads the data from the disk in which the corresponding data is stored, and transmits it to the host computer that issued the read request. Conversely, if it is a write request, the physical address is obtained from the logical address included in the write request, and the write process is executed for the corresponding disk. When the disk device receives a memory access from the host computer, the disk device temporarily queues this request in the memory and performs processing in the order in which it is held.

  However, since memory access from the host computer is temporarily queued and stored in the memory and processed according to the order in which it was stored, problems arise especially in situations where there is no variation in the importance or urgency of the services being executed on the host computer. However, if a service with a high degree of urgency is being executed, a process with a high degree of urgency will be waited until the processing of the previously received memory access is completed. Become.

  For this reason, a disk device that can perform priority processing of memory access according to the importance or urgency of a service executed by a host computer is considered. (For example, see Patent Document 1)

There is also a technique for optimizing the order of reading and writing data by using an NCQ (Native Command Queuing) function.
Further, in an information processing apparatus equipped with such a disk device, the fall is detected by a sensor, and the head for writing / reading on the disk in the disk device is retreated from the disk surface, so that the physical relationship between the disk and the head is reduced. There is a so-called “HDD protection” technique that prevents data loss on a disk due to a simple contact. In this method, the acceleration detected by the acceleration sensor is monitored, and when the falling gravity acceleration is detected, the head is moved away from the disk surface. (For example, see Patent Document 2)
JP 2001-222382 A JP2000-241442A

  However, even if the fall detection is performed by the acceleration sensor and the evacuation command is output to the disk device, it is queued in the memory inside the disk device, and the head avoidance command is not executed before the fall. As a result, the HDD protection function may not work effectively.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an information processing apparatus in which a protection operation of a disk device can be executed more quickly when a drop is detected.

  In order to achieve the above object, an information processing apparatus according to the present invention is temporarily stored in a command output means for outputting a command for writing or reading data to a disk device and a storage area provided in the disk device. Command number setting means for variably controlling the number of commands, drop determination means for performing drop determination based on an acceleration signal detected by an acceleration sensor, and the head of the disk device when the drop determination means determines that the head is falling Save command output means for outputting to the disk device a save command for saving the command, and the command number control means is configured so that the save command output means functions in a mode in which the save command is output effectively. Compare the number of commands temporarily stored in the storage area when the save command output means is disabled Reducing Te is characterized in.

  In addition, the control method of the information processing apparatus of the present invention controls the step of outputting a command for writing or reading data to the disk device and the number of commands temporarily stored in a storage area provided in the disk device. A drop determination step for performing a drop determination based on an acceleration signal detected by an acceleration sensor, and a retreat command for retracting the head of the disk device to the disk device when the drop determination step determines a drop. If the save command output step to be output and the save command output step function are enabled, the number of commands temporarily saved in the storage area of the disk device is set to the save command output step function disabled. And a step of reducing as compared to the case of being present.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to provide an information processing apparatus in which a protection operation of a disk device can be executed more quickly when a drop is detected.

  The information processing apparatus of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a system configuration of a notebook PC (Personal Computer) 10 which is a first embodiment of the information processing apparatus of the present invention. The notebook PC 10 includes a substrate 101 on which various components are mounted, a disk device (hereinafter referred to as HDD) 102 connected to the substrate 101 via a cable (SATA cable), and a liquid crystal display device (hereinafter referred to as LCD) 103. And a keyboard 104 which is an input device for inputting characters, and a power supply unit 105 which supplies power to them.

  The board 101 includes a CPU 110 that controls the operation of the entire PC 10, a main memory 111, a BIOS (Basic Input / Output System) memory 112, and a LAN (Local) for sending and receiving e-mails and data to and from the Internet 11 and LAN. (Area Network) device 113, an acceleration sensor 114 for detecting the acceleration of the PC 10 itself, and a SATA controller 115 for exchanging data and commands with the HDD 102 are provided. The CPU 110 is a processor that executes various programs stored in the BIOS memory 112 and controls the operation of the entire PC 10 according to an operating system stored in the HDD 102. The main memory 111 is a memory in which an operating system, application programs, and device drivers stored in the HDD 102 are expanded and stored when the system is started. The main memory 111 is a HDD driver 116 that is a device driver of the HDD 102 and a device driver of the acceleration sensor 114. A sensor driver 117 is expanded from the HDD 102 to the main memory 111. The BIOS memory 112 is a memory that stores various programs that execute initialization processing of various hardware devices to be connected, memory capacity check of the main memory 111, and the like when the system is activated by the power supply unit 105. The LAN device 113 is a communication device module that connects to the Internet 11 or a LAN and transmits and receives electronic mail and data. The acceleration sensor 114 is provided in the PC 10 main body, detects gravity when the PC 10 is stationary and outputs a gravitational acceleration component signal, and outputs a substantially zero acceleration component signal when the PC 10 is free-falling. The HDD driver 116 outputs an instruction command such as data writing or data reading to the HDD 102 via the SATA controller 115 in accordance with an instruction based on an application program executed by the CPU 110. In addition, a command setting signal for setting the number of commands temporarily stored (queued) in the memory built in the HDD 102 is output, and the upper limit of the number of commands temporarily stored is variably set. Each time a command is executed from the HDD 102, a write command or a read command is output to the HDD 102 until the upper limit of the number of commands temporarily stored in the HDD 102 is reached. The sensor driver 117 monitors the acceleration signal from the acceleration sensor 114 at a cycle of 20 ms and outputs a gravitational acceleration component signal, or outputs a free fall acceleration component signal, that is, a substantially zero acceleration component signal. To monitor. When a substantially zero signal, which is a free fall acceleration component signal, continues for a predetermined period, for example, 100 ms (a substantially zero acceleration component signal is detected six times continuously), a fall determination signal is output to the HDD driver 116.

Next, the configuration of the HDD 102 (disk device) will be described with reference to FIG.
The HDD 102 is connected to the SATA controller 115 via a SATA cable, and an interface 201 that controls transmission and reception of commands and data, a CPU 202 that controls the entire HDD 102, and a memory that temporarily stores (queues) commands output from the HDD driver 116. 203, a magnetic disk 204 for recording data, a magnetic head 205 for writing data to or reading data from the magnetic disk 204, and an actuator 206 for moving the magnetic head 205. . The interface 201 is an interface with the SATA controller 115 for inputting a write command and a read command to the magnetic disk 204 from the HDD driver 116 via the SATA cable and outputting data read from the magnetic disk to the HDD driver 116. It is. The CPU 202 sequentially executes commands temporarily stored in the memory 203, and causes data to be written to or read from the magnetic disk 204. When a magnetic head retract command is received from the HDD driver 116, the actuator 206 is driven and controlled in accordance with the command, and the magnetic head 205 is moved to the retract area (shown by the dotted line in FIG. 2) off the magnetic disk. It is controlled to move. The memory 203 has a storage area for temporarily storing (queuing) a write command, a read command, a save command, or the like from the HDD driver 116 to the magnetic disk 204, and normally temporarily stores up to 32 commands as an upper limit. To do. However, when an instruction is received from the HDD driver 116 to lower the upper limit, the number of commands temporarily held is changed and set accordingly. For example, when monitoring of the acceleration sensor 114 by the sensor driver 117 is periodically executed, that is, when HDD protection for retracting the head at the time of free fall is functioning, four commands are temporarily stored in the memory 203. When the HDD protection function is disabled by the user, 32 commands are temporarily stored in the memory, and the writing / reading processing speed to the magnetic disk 204 is prioritized. The magnetic disk 204 stores application programs executed by the PC 10, data necessary for the programs, and the like. The magnetic head 205 performs data writing (recording) or data reading (reproduction) on the magnetic disk 204. The actuator 206 moves and drives the magnetic head 205 in accordance with the data writing position on the magnetic disk 204 or the data reading position, and the magnetic head 205 is detached from the magnetic disk 204 when receiving the evacuation command. It is moved to a retreat area (state shown by a dotted line in FIG. 2).

A drop determination process by the acceleration sensor 114 and the sensor driver 117 of the PC 10 configured as described above will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
First, it is checked whether or not the HDD protection function is enabled by the user (step 301). If the HDD protection function is enabled, the sensor driver 117 determines whether or not 20 ms has passed (step 302). When 20 ms has elapsed, an acceleration component signal from the acceleration sensor 114 is input (step 303). That is, the sensor driver 117 inputs acceleration component signals output from the acceleration sensor 114 at 20 ms intervals. Next, it is determined whether or not the input acceleration component signal is substantially zero, and specifically, it is detected whether or not the gravitational acceleration G is between -0.25 and 0.25 (step 304). Thereby, it is determined whether or not it is in a free fall state. Incidentally, the gravitational acceleration G is output as 1 (G = 1) when the PC 10 is stationary. If it is detected in step 304 that the gravitational acceleration is substantially zero, whether or not the number of times of detection has reached six times, whether or not the gravitational acceleration is substantially zero has been detected six times in succession, that is, 100 ms. It is determined whether or not the substantially zero state is continued (step 305). If it is detected six times in succession, it is determined that it is falling, and a drop determination signal is output to the HDD driver 116. Here, six consecutive times, that is, 100 ms or more continuously, the free fall state is detected and the fall determination is performed because the free fall is a state in which the acceleration that occurs instantaneously when the user carries the PC 10 is approximately zero. This is to prevent as much as possible from judging that there is. Of course, in consideration of safety, the continuous detection time of the free fall state may be set to a time shorter than 100 ms. Alternatively, the falling distance at which the PC 10 is damaged may be calculated in advance, and the continuous detection time may be set from the relationship with the falling time corresponding to the falling distance. If the continuous detection time is set too close to the drop time, the time for retracting the magnetic head 205 to the retreat area cannot be secured, and that time should be taken into consideration.

  The validity / invalidity setting of the HDD protection function may be a slide-type hardware switch provided in the casing of the PC 10 or may be realized by an application program (software). In the case of an on / off slide type hardware switch, when the switch is turned on, the sensor driver 117 operates to monitor the acceleration component signal from the acceleration sensor 114. On the other hand, when implemented by an application program (software), when the program is activated, the sensor driver 117 operates to monitor the acceleration component signal from the acceleration sensor 114.

Next, the HDD protection function operation by the HDD driver 116 of the PC 10 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.
First, it is checked whether or not the HDD protection function is enabled by the user (step 401). If it is enabled, the upper limit of the number of commands temporarily stored (queued) in the memory 203 of the HDD 102 is set. “4” is set (step 402). The HDD driver 116 monitors commands executed in the HDD 102 so that the number of commands reaches the upper limit, and a write / read command is executed each time a command temporarily stored in the memory 203 is executed on the HDD 102 side. Is output to the HDD 102, and command output is controlled so that the upper limit of the set number of commands is not always exceeded. If the HDD protection function is disabled at step 401, that is, if the sensor driver 117 is not functioning, the upper limit of the number of commands temporarily stored (queued) in the memory 203 of the HDD 102 is set. “32” is set (step 403).

  In the state where the upper limit of the number of commands is set in this way, the sensor driver 117 next monitors whether or not a fall determination signal is input (step 404). When a drop determination signal is input from the sensor driver 117, the output of a new command to the HDD 102 is stopped until all commands temporarily stored (queued) in the memory 203 of the HDD 102 are executed. Then, it is monitored whether or not all the commands in the memory 203 have been executed (step 405). After confirming that all the commands in the memory 203, that is, at most four commands have been processed, the magnetic head 205 is checked. A save command is output to the HDD 102 (step 406). The HDD 102 receives the save command via the interface 201, temporarily stores it in the memory 203, and then the actuator 206 is operated by the execution processing of the command by the CPU 202, so that the magnetic head 205 is moved to the save area removed from the magnetic disk 204. It will be evacuated.

  Note that the lower the upper limit of the number of commands, the lower the speed of recording or reproduction on the magnetic disk 204. Therefore, the upper limit of the optimum number of commands can be determined by considering the fall time calculated from the fall distance at which the PC 10 is damaged, the fall detection time, and the command processing time. For example, if the fall time calculated from the fall distance at which the PC 10 breaks is 300 ms and 100 ms is required as the time for detecting the fall, the number of commands that can be processed in the remaining 200 ms is calculated, and the number less than the number of commands is calculated. The upper limit may be set.

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, when the HDD protection function is enabled, the HDD driver 116 controls to reduce the upper limit of the number of commands queued in the memory 203 of the HDD 102. Thus, when the save command for the magnetic head 205 is output to the HDD 102, the save command can be executed earlier on the HDD 102 side. Therefore, it is possible to eliminate the inconvenience that the execution of the save command on the HDD 102 side is delayed, the save of the magnetic head 205 is delayed, and the HDD protection function does not work effectively. Further, when the HDD protection function is not working (when it is set to invalid), the data access speed to the magnetic disk 204 is given priority, and the number of commands queued in the memory 203 is set according to the HDD protection function working. Therefore, it is possible to provide an easy-to-use usage method that matches the user's usage environment.

  Further, since the sensor driver 117 determines that the gravitational acceleration G is substantially zero when the gravity acceleration G continues for a predetermined time, the sensor driver 117 determines that the user is moving the PC 10 or with a small impact or the like. The operation of determining that the magnetic head 205 is free fall and retracting the magnetic head 205 can be reduced as much as possible. As a result, it is possible to prevent the head from being retracted and the data access time to be long, thereby reducing the convenience for the user and the durability of the magnetic head 205 and the actuator 206 from being impaired.

  In this embodiment, the HDD driver 116 controls the upper limit of the number of commands temporarily stored in the memory 203, but the SATA controller 115 may perform the same control, or the CPU 202 of the HDD 102 may store the memory 203. Control may be performed by executing firmware or the like stored in advance. In such a case, the HDD driver 116 instructs the upper limit of the number of commands to the SATA controller 115 or HDD 102, and the CPU 202 of the SATA controller 115 or HDD 102 is queued in the memory 203 so that the upper limit is not exceeded. Controls the number of commands that are executed.

  In this embodiment, the acceleration sensor 114 is described as being provided on the substrate 101. However, the acceleration sensor 114 may be provided on the housing of the PC 10 or the HDD 102.

It is a block diagram which shows the system configuration | structure of the information processing apparatus which concerns on 1st Example of this invention. It is a figure which shows schematic structure of the disc apparatus of the information processing apparatus which concerns on 1st Example of this invention. It is an operation | movement flowchart figure which shows fall detection operation | movement of the information processing apparatus which concerns on 1st Example of this invention. It is an operation | movement flowchart figure explaining the HDD protection function of the information processing apparatus which concerns on 1st Example of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

10 ... Computer 102 ... HDD
110 ... CPU
111 ... Main memory 114 ... Acceleration sensor 115 ... SATA controller 116 ... HDD driver 117 ... Sensor driver 202 ... CPU
203 ... Memory 204 ... Magnetic disk 205 ... Magnetic head

Claims (6)

Command output means for outputting commands such as data writing or reading to the disk device;
Command number control means for variably controlling the number of commands temporarily stored in a storage area provided in the disk device;
Drop determination means for performing drop determination based on an acceleration signal detected by the acceleration sensor;
A evacuation command output means for outputting a evacuation command for evacuating the head of the disk device to the disk device when the fall determining means determines that the head is dropped;
The command number control means is configured so that, in the mode in which the save command output means functions and the save command is output effectively, the save command output means sets the number of commands temporarily saved in the storage area of the disk device. An information processing apparatus characterized in that it is reduced as compared with a case where it is invalidated.   2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the save command output means outputs the save command to the disk device after executing all commands temporarily stored in the storage area of the disk device. Information processing device.   2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the fall determination unit determines that the fall has occurred when a state in which the acceleration signal detected by the acceleration sensor is substantially zero continues for a predetermined time or more. . Outputting a command for writing or reading data to the disk device;
Variably controlling the number of commands temporarily stored in a storage area provided in the disk device;
A fall determination step for performing fall determination based on an acceleration signal detected by the acceleration sensor;
A evacuation command output step of outputting a evacuation command to evacuate the head of the disk device to the disk device when it is determined to be dropped by the fall determination step;
A step of reducing the number of commands temporarily stored in the storage area of the disk device when the function of the save command output step is enabled as compared to when the function of the save command output step is disabled. When,
An information processing apparatus control method comprising:   5. The information processing apparatus control method according to claim 4, wherein the saving command output step outputs the saving command to the disk device after executing all commands temporarily stored in the storage area of the disk device. A control method for an information processing apparatus.   5. The control method for an information processing apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the fall determination step determines that the vehicle has fallen when a state where the acceleration signal detected by the acceleration sensor is substantially zero continues for a predetermined time or more. A method for controlling an information processing apparatus.

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