JPH03125384A - Disk controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To suppress the movement quantity of a disk head by converting a 1st cylinder number which indicates a cylinder in a disk control area that an operating system recognizes into a 2nd cylinder number indicating an actual disk control area. CONSTITUTION:A CPU 3 outputs a control signal to a disk control part 11 while regarding the 1st cylinder number supplied from the OS at the time of initialization as the movement quantity of the disk head. The control part 11 moves the disk head by the movement quantity indicated by the control signal. An alteration mode is entered after the initialization and the 2nd cylinder number stored in a storage location indicated by the 1st cylinder number supplied from the OS is read out by the CPU 3. The CPU 3 sends the 2nd read cylinder number as the movement quantity of the disk head to the control part 11. The control part 11 moves the disk head to the 2nd sent cylinder number. Consequently, the movement quantity of the disk head can be suppressed without improving the OS and the processing is speeded up.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention [Objective of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention is directed to writing or reading disk management information that manages information such as file names and sizes stored in a magnetic disk device, for example. The present invention relates to a disk control device that suppresses the average movement amount of a disk head.

(Prior Art) Generally, a magnetic disk device, which is an auxiliary storage device for a computer, includes a disk management area that stores various management information such as the location and size of files stored on the disk.

When changing this disk management area, for example, changing the number of records of the above file from r150J to "200", so-called file attribute change, the magnetic disk device controls the disk head that writes or reads file information into the disk management area. information, and rewrites the disk management area in accordance with the change in the file attribute area.

In recent years, efforts have been made to increase the storage capacity of magnetic disk devices in order to improve the functionality and versatility of computers. In order to increase this capacity, the number of cylinders provided in the magnetic disk device is increased. The amount of movement of the disk head to read the file area becomes large.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) In conventional devices, when the storage capacity of a magnetic disk device increases, the amount of movement of the disk head between the disk management area and the data storage file area increases, resulting in a reduction in processing time. This may result in delays. As a countermeasure, it may be possible to move the disk management area to an optimal location and improve the operating system (hereinafter referred to as O8), but improving O8 would require a large amount of labor costs and work days. This was not an appropriate measure as it could lead to an increase in maintenance costs.

The present invention has been made in view of the above, and its purpose is to improve the performance of the device by reducing the amount of movement of the disk head and speeding up processing without improving the existing operation system. The object of the present invention is to provide an improved disk control device.

[Structure of the Invention] (Means for Solving the Problems) In order to achieve the above object, the present invention sets a first cylinder number indicating a cylinder in a management area of a disk recognized by an operating system to the actual disk. A conversion table is provided for converting to a second cylinder number indicating a management area, and when the first cylinder number is designated by the operating system, the conversion table converts the first cylinder number to a second cylinder number corresponding to the first cylinder number. The gist of the present invention is to include a reading means for reading a cylinder number, and a means for moving a disk head to a cylinder pointed to by a second cylinder number read by the reading means.

(Function) In a disk control device with the above configuration, when a first cylinder number indicating a cylinder in the disk management area recognized by the operating system is specified, the conversion table corresponds to the first cylinder number. The second cylinder number indicating the actual disk management area is read. Since the disk head is moved to the cylinder pointed to by the read second cylinder number, the amount of movement of the disk head can be suppressed.

(Example) Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in detail using the drawings.

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

The disk control device includes a host control unit 1, C
It has PU3 and ROM5.

The host control unit 1 includes a host computer (
(not shown) to the disk control device of the present invention.

The CPU 3 controls the entire apparatus according to the present invention, and controls the disk control section 11 based on commands transmitted from the host control section 1 and control instructions stored in the ROM 5, which will be described later.

The ROM 5 stores control instructions for the CPU 3 at predetermined addresses.

The disk control device also includes a RAM 7, a DMA control section 9, and a disk control section 11.

The RAM 7 stores write data from the host control unit 1 to the disk control unit 11 and read data from the disk control unit 11 to the host computer at predetermined addresses. Also, R
The AM7 is equipped with a cylinder conversion table 17, which will be described later, for reducing the average movement amount of the disk head.

The DMA control unit 9 controls data transfer between the host computer (not shown) and the disk controller via the RAM 7.

The disk control section 11 controls the writing or reading of data to and from the disk section 3 by the disk head.

The disk unit 13 includes a large number of disks on which data is written or read on a magnetic surface under the control of the disk control unit 11. Many of the discs mentioned above are
Disc management is performed by assigning cylinder numbers O to N corresponding to both sides of the disc from the top of the disc unit 13 in the figure.

Note that the disk control section 11. Data transmission is performed between the CPU 3, RAM 7, etc. via an internal bus 15.

Cylinder conversion table 1 provided in the RAM 7 above
7 (conversion table) will be explained using FIG.

The cylinder conversion table 17 is configured to access the second cylinder number using the first cylinder number as an offset. The above cylinder conversion table 17
When reading the second cylinder number from the CPU 3, the CPU 3 uses the first cylinder number given from the operation system (hereinafter referred to as O8) as the address where the second cylinder number is stored, and sets the storage position indicated by the address. Reads the second cylinder number stored in .

For example, the first cylinder number given from O8 is "5".
”, the CPU 3 reads the second cylinder number stored in the storage position indicated by the address r0005HJ of the cylinder conversion table 17.

Note that the second cylinder number is near the intermediate cylinder, and is a value empirically determined from data on the amount of movement of the disk head when accessing the disk management area in the past.

Further, the cylinder conversion table 17 is initialized by O8 when the system is started up, or by an initial program load function.

Furthermore, when the system is started up, it is in a non-conversion mode, and the first cylinder conversion table 17 is not used.
The disk head is moved using the cylinder number as the second cylinder number. From here on, cylinder conversion table 1
Processing is performed using 7.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained using the processing flowchart shown in FIG.

First, after power is turned on to the device, a command is sent from the host computer (not shown) via the host control unit 1 to the
It is transmitted to PU3. The CPU 3 interprets the transmitted command and performs a seek process to select a cylinder to access (step 100).

At the time of initial setting, the CPU 3 outputs a control signal to the disk control section 11 using the first cylinder number given from O8 as the amount of movement of the disk head. The disk control unit 11 moves the disk head by the amount of movement indicated by the control signal (step 110).
~130).

On the other hand, after the initial setting, the CPU 3 enters the change mode and reads out the second cylinder number stored in the storage position indicated by the first cylinder number given from O8. Above C
PU3 is the second read movement amount of the disk head.
The cylinder number is transmitted to the disk control section 11. The disk control unit 11 moves the disk head to the second cylinder number transmitted as described above (step 140).

As a result, without improving O8, for example, when changing file attributes, the amount of movement of the disk head due to access between the disk management area that O8 frequently accesses and the data storage area that stores various data can be reduced. The goal is to reduce the amount of time required and speed up processing.

As described above, the present invention can be implemented with various modifications within the scope of the invention.

[Effects of the Invention] As explained above, according to the present invention, the performance of the device can be improved by reducing the amount of movement of the disk head and speeding up processing without improving the existing operation system. .

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the disk control device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram of a cylinder conversion table, and FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the present invention. 3...CPU 5...ROM 7...RAM 11...Disk control unit 13...Disk unit 17...Cylinder conversion table 1 patent attorney Hidekazu Miyoshi 1 Figure 2

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] The method further comprises: a conversion table for converting a first cylinder number indicating a cylinder of a disk management area recognized by an operating system into a second cylinder number actually indicating the disk management area; reading means for reading a second cylinder number corresponding to the first cylinder number from the conversion table when the first cylinder number is specified by an operating system; and a second cylinder read by the reading means. A disk control device comprising: means for moving a disk head to a cylinder indicated by a number;