JPH05325422A - Information recording and reproducing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable setting-up a cache memory immediately after loading by providing a data block which does not belong to both a data region and a substitute region in a recording region and preserving cache control data. CONSTITUTION:A data block which does not belong to both the data region and the substitute region is provided in the recording region of an optical disk 8, and cache control data are preserved in the data block. When the optical disk 8 is loaded to a device, a CPU 5 judges whether the data are effective cache control data or not, if they are effective, cache control data are stored in a buffer RAM 11 as a cache memory. Setup of the cache memory is immediately performed based on the control data, when required, data are read from the cache memory and transferred to a host computer 1.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information recording / reproducing apparatus for recording or reproducing information on an information recording medium such as an optical disk.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in a computer system or the like, it is general to use a high-speed semiconductor memory as a main memory inside and an external storage device having a large capacity and a low bit unit price as a secondary memory. .. Examples of the external storage device include a magnetic disk device, an optical disk device, and a magneto-optical disk device. However, although the external storage device has a large capacity, the access speed is slow. Therefore, as a solution to this problem, a disk cache method in which a so-called cache memory is provided inside the external storage device to compensate for the slow access speed is conventionally adopted. ing. That is, a part of the data recorded on the disc, which is an information recording medium, is stored in a high-speed cache memory, and when the host device makes a read request, if the requested data is stored in the cache memory, the data from the disc is read. It is intended to speed up access by reading data in the cache memory without performing reading. In such a disk cache method, since the capacity of the cache memory is limited, it is efficient to store the data in the cache memory, for example, in descending order of frequency of use based on the access status from the host device. Then, the management data of the cache memory indicating which position of the disk the data of which is stored in the cache memory is created to generate the RA in the device.
When the host device makes a read request, the management data is referred to, and if the requested data is in the cache memory, the data is read from the cache memory as described above.

By the way, in the magnetic disk device, optical disk device, and magneto-optical disk device used as the external storage device as described above, a recording / reproducing disk having spiral information tracks, that is, a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a magneto-optical disk is used. It is used. As a method of efficiently recording information on such a disc, there are a CAV method of forming recording pits on an information track at a constant angular velocity and a CLV method of forming recording pits at a constant linear velocity. Since the CAV system performs recording at a constant angular velocity, the recording density on the outer peripheral side is lower than that on the inner peripheral part of the disc, and it is inferior to the CLV system in efficient use of recording capacity. On the other hand, the CLV method has a drawback that data cannot be reproduced until the number of revolutions reaches a target value at the time of access because the sectors do not become radial and the number of revolutions differs depending on the recording position, resulting in a long access time. ..

Therefore, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 59-167874.
In the publications and the like, the MCAV system has been proposed which has both the easy access of the CAV system and the excellent recording density of the CLV system. That is, this MCA
In the V method, the disk is divided in the radial direction into a plurality of zones, and the number of rotations is lowered toward the outer circumference for recording, so that the recording density becomes lower toward the outer circumference, which is a drawback of the CAV method. Is also improved. As a MCAV system similar to this, there is also known a system in which the number of rotations of the inner and outer circumferences is kept constant, and the recording / reproducing frequency is increased toward the outer circumference for recording.

[0005]

However, in the related art, the management data of the cache memory is created based on the access status from the host device as described above. When the disk was replaced, it was necessary to recreate the management data of the newly installed disk. That is, when the disk is replaced, the management data up to now cannot be used because the disk data is different, and the management data of the cache memory corresponding to the mounted disk has to be created from the beginning.

Further, in the above-mentioned MCAV system information recording / reproducing apparatus, when recording / reproducing, the recording / reproducing operation cannot be performed until the number of revolutions of the disk or the recording / reproducing frequency is switched when moving to the next zone. It was not possible to continuously record and play over the two zones. Therefore, when recording / reproducing is performed over two zones, the recording / reproducing operation is stopped when the recording / reproducing of one zone is completed and one rotation of the disc is waited, and the recording / reproducing is restarted at the beginning of the next zone. The method is adopted. Therefore, 1
There is a problem that it takes a long time to record and reproduce the information because it is necessary to wait for one rotation of the disc for each zone.

The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and its purpose is to store management data for managing data in a cache memory in a predetermined data block of a recording medium. An object of the present invention is to provide an information recording / reproducing apparatus which does not need to create management data every time a recording medium is exchanged and can set up a cache memory immediately after the recording medium is exchanged.

Further, according to the present invention, the data in the recording / reproducing frequency or the recording medium rotation speed switching area at the zone boundary of the information recording medium is cached so that the reproducing or recording can be continuously performed over a plurality of zones. An object is to provide an information recording / reproducing device.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to record or reproduce information on an exchangeable information recording medium based on an instruction from a host controller, and to partially cache information recorded on the recording medium in a cache memory. In the information recording / reproducing apparatus for reading the information in the cache memory and transferring it to the host controller, when the information stored in the cache memory is instructed to be reproduced by the host controller, the data recording on the information recording medium is performed. An information recording / reproducing apparatus, characterized in that a data block that does not belong to either a data area or an alternative area is provided in the area, and management data for managing the data cached in the cache memory is stored in this data block. Achieved by

Another object of the present invention is to divide the recording area of the disc-shaped information recording medium into a plurality of zones in the radial direction,
In an information recording / reproducing apparatus for recording or reproducing information by switching to a recording / reproducing frequency or recording medium rotation speed corresponding to each zone, a recording / reproducing frequency or recording medium rotation at a zone boundary of the information recording medium. A buffer memory is provided to cache the data in the speed switching area. When recording information, the data to be recorded in the switching area is temporarily stored in the buffer memory, or when the information is reproduced, the data in the switching area is cached in advance. It is achieved by an information recording / reproducing apparatus characterized by reading from a buffer memory stored as.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the information recording / reproducing apparatus of the present invention. In the present embodiment, an optical disk device will be taken as an example of the information recording / reproducing device. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 is a host computer which is a host controller, and 2 is an information recording / reproducing apparatus connected to the host computer 1. The information recording / reproducing device 2 records or reproduces information based on an instruction from the host computer 1. Further, the information recording / reproducing apparatus 2 is configured as follows. First, 3 is a host interface that controls the interface with the host computer 1, 4 is an optical disk controller for controlling the recording and reproducing of information by controlling each unit in the apparatus, and 5 is a CPU for controlling the apparatus as a whole. Is. The optical disc controller 4 executes the control operation of each unit based on the instruction of the CPU 5.

Reference numeral 6 is a ROM in which a control program for the CPU 5 is stored, and 7 is a RAM used for controlling the CPU 5. Reference numeral 8 is an optical disk which is an information recording medium, and 9 is an optical disk drive device which drives the optical disk 8 to record and reproduce information. This optical disk drive 9
Is composed of a motor for rotating the optical disk 8 and a recording / reproducing head. Reference numeral 10 is an ECC controller for controlling error correction of data, and 11 is a buffer RAM for temporarily storing the recording data transferred from the host computer 1 and temporarily storing the reproduction data transferred to the host computer 1. Besides this, the buffer RAM 11 is also used as a cache memory for storing a part of the data of the optical disk 8, that is, cache data.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a format of a zone of the optical disc 8 divided into a plurality of zones. In the example of FIG.
The data area and the corresponding replacement area are arranged adjacent to each other, and when a defect occurs in the data area, replacement processing can be performed with the replacement area adjacent thereto. For example, when a defect occurs in the data area 2, the data to be recorded in the defective area is re-recorded in the corresponding replacement area 2. The cache management data recording sector shown in FIG. 2 is a surplus sector generated when the recording area of the optical disc 8 is divided into a plurality of zones. For example,
According to the standard of 3.5-inch magneto-optical disk, the data area is 9994 tracks × 25 sectors, and it is stipulated that this is equally divided into several zones.
The total number of replacement sectors is determined to be 1024 sectors (maximum). Therefore, the total number of sectors is 4997 × 5 ² × 2
The number of sectors and replacement sectors is 2 ¹⁰ sectors. The number of divisions must be 2 ⁿ (n ≦ 10) in order to equally divide this so as not to reduce the number of replacement sectors. However, since the total number of sectors is 4997 × 5 ² × 2 sectors as described above, when the number of divisions is other than 1 or 2, extra sectors are inevitably generated. In practice, considering the seek length of the optical head in the replacement process, the number of divisions is 8, 16, 3
2, 64 is desirable, and with such division numbers,
A surplus of 10, 26, 58 sectors will occur. This surplus sector was never used and was a useless sector that was not allocated to either the data area or the replacement area.

The cache management data recording pattern shown in FIG. 2 is a surplus sector generated in this way. In this embodiment, this surplus sector is effectively used to store cache management data. That is, although a part of the data of the optical disc 1 is stored in the cache memory (buffer RAM 11) as cache data, management indicating which data of which sector of the optical disc 1 is recorded at which address of the cache memory. By storing the data in the surplus sector, the management data peculiar to each optical disk is saved, and the problem that the management data is created from the beginning when the optical disk is replaced as in the past is solved. .. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a specific example of cache management data, which is composed of header information, cached sector addresses, cache memory division information, chuck sum, CRC, and other information.
The header information is information indicating that it is cache management data, the cached sector address is the sector address of the cache data on the optical disc 1, the cache memory division information is the information indicating the division state of the recording area of the cache memory, and the checksum. Alternatively, CRC is a check code. Although this management data will be described in detail later, it is stored in the RAM 7 provided on the device side when the optical disc is mounted in the device body, and the cache memory is set up based on this management data.

Next, a specific operation of this embodiment will be described. First, the operation when the optical disk 8 is ejected (when ejected) will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. Figure 4
First, when an eject command is issued from the host computer 1 (S1), the CPU 5 controls each unit to read the definition track data of the optical disk 8, and based on the data, the data area and the replacement area as described above. Physical addresses of surplus sectors that do not belong to any of the above are calculated (S2). That is, the surplus sector for storing the above-mentioned cache management data is searched for.
The definition track data includes zone division information of the optical disc 8, information indicating the data area and the replacement area of each zone, and information such as a defective sector in the data area and its replacement sector. Thereafter, the CPU 5 determines whether or not there is a storage sector (surplus sector) (S3), and if there is a storage sector, writes the cache management data stored in the RAM 7 into the storage sector of the optical disk 8 (S).
4). In this way, the storage of the cache management data of the optical disk 8 that has been loaded up to now is completed, and the optical disk 8 is ejected from the apparatus body (S5).

Next, the operation when the power of the apparatus is turned on and when the optical disk is loaded into the apparatus main body will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. In FIG. 5, when the power of the device is turned on, the CPU 5 controls each unit to execute self-diagnosis and confirm that the device operates normally (S1). Then, the CPU 5 determines whether or not the optical disk 8 is mounted in the apparatus based on an output signal of a disk detection sensor (not shown) (S2). If the optical disk 8 is mounted, the above-mentioned definition track data is read and the zone of the optical disk 8 is read. The division information and the defect information are acquired (S3). CPU
5 calculates the physical addresses of the surplus sectors that do not belong to either the data area or the replacement area, based on the obtained definition track data (S).
4). The CPU 5 searches the obtained physical address and determines whether or not there is a sector in which the cache management data is stored (S5). If there is a sector in which the cache management data is recorded, the CPU 5 stores the management data in the RAM 7. Read (S6). The CPU 5 further determines whether the read data is valid, that is, whether it is valid cache management data (S7). If it is valid, the data of the optical disk 8 is cached in the cache memory based on the obtained cache management data. And the cache memory is set up (S8). When the predetermined cache data is stored in the cache memory in this way, the device is ready to accept read and write requests from the host computer 1. When there is a read request from the host computer 1, the CPU 5 refers to the cache management data to determine whether the requested data is in the cache memory, and if there is the requested data, reads the data from the cache memory and sends it to the host. Transfer to computer 1.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the cache management data is stored by providing the sectors not included in the data area and the spare area in the recording area of the optical disk. Immediately after mounting, the cache memory can be set up based on the management data. Therefore, it is possible to solve the problem that the cache management data must be created from the beginning based on the access status of the host computer when the disk is replaced as in the conventional case, and the cache effect by the cache memory can be immediately realized when the device is started up. Can be expected. Moreover, by storing the cache management data in the surplus sector that occurs when the disk is divided into multiple zones, no new memory for storage is required, and the cache management data can be stored at the same cost as before. Can be saved.

Next, another embodiment of the information recording / reproducing apparatus of the present invention will be described. FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the information recording / reproducing apparatus of this embodiment. In FIG.
Reference numeral 21 is an information recording / reproducing apparatus connected to a host computer 22, which is a host controller. Information recording / reproducing apparatus 2
1 uses an optical disk 32 as a recording medium, and performs a recording / reproducing operation according to an instruction from the host computer 22.
Sending and receiving commands and data with the host computer 22
This is performed by the host I / F control unit 23, and this host I / F
The control unit 23 receives commands such as read / write, recording data, and reproducing data. The MPU 24 controls the entire apparatus as a whole, and controls each unit in the apparatus according to a control program stored in the ROM 25. The RAM 26 is a work memory for the MPU 24, an ECC.
The circuit 27 is a circuit for performing modulation and demodulation for adding or deleting ECC to data, and for verify-check, and the ECCRAM 28 is a work memory of the ECC circuit 27. The read / write buffer 29 is a buffer memory for temporarily storing the recording data sent from the host computer 22 and temporarily storing the reproduction data to be transmitted to the host computer 22. The read / write buffer 29 is also used as a cache memory for storing data at the zone boundary portion of the optical disc 32, as will be described later in detail. Disk R / W
The unit 30 controls the optical disc 3 under the control of the disc control unit 31.
2 is a recording / reproducing unit for recording or reproducing data.

In the information recording / reproducing apparatus of this embodiment, of the above-mentioned two MCAV systems, the recording area of the optical disk 32 is divided in the radial direction to form a plurality of zones in an annular shape, and the zones from the inner side to the outer side are formed. The MCAV method is adopted in which the recording / reproducing frequency is increased toward the side zone to perform recording / reproducing. In the MCAV system, when the recording / reproducing frequency is switched for each zone, the MPU 24 identifies to which zone the head moves based on the reproduction signal from the disk R / W unit 30. Then, by supplying a predetermined recording / reproducing frequency control signal to the disk R / W unit 30 in accordance with the identification result, frequency switching is performed.

FIG. 7 is a plan view showing the structure of the recording area of the optical disk 32 used in this embodiment. In this embodiment, the recording area of the optical disc 32 is divided into six zones Z0 to Z5 from the inner circumference toward the outer circumference. And
The number of sectors for one track in each of the zones Z0 to Z5 is 11 in the innermost zone Z0, and increases one by one in the outer circumferential direction to 16 in the outermost zone Z5. FIG. 8 is an explanatory diagram in which the zone boundaries of the optical disc 32 shown in FIG. 7 are enlarged. In the figure, A _{n-3 to} A _n are the last 3 sectors of zone A (for example, zone Z0), B _{1 to} B.
₄ Zone B (e.g., the zone Z1) shows the first four sectors of where to record data to the zone B from zone A, reproduction is performed. In the present embodiment, when the recording / reproducing frequency is switched, it is assumed that, due to the rotation of the optical disk 32, two or three sectors are passed during the switching time. Therefore, in this embodiment, when shifting from zone A to zone B, the MPU 24 outputs a frequency switching command to the disk R / W unit 30 at time T _{1 when} the ID of the sector A _n-2 is detected. As a result, the recording / reproducing frequency reaches a stable recording / reproducing frequency in zone B at time T _{2 when the data} passes through three sectors, and recording / reproducing can be performed at the frequency switched from the _first sector B _{1 in} zone B. The last three sectors of zone A, A _n-2 , A _n-1 , and A _n , cannot record or reproduce because the recording / reproducing frequency is switched, but the data in this area is read / write buffer as described later. Since the data is previously cached in 29, the data is accessed to the read / write buffer 29.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart showing the flow of processing when the power is turned on in the information recording / reproducing apparatus of this embodiment. In FIG. 9, when the power is turned on, first the MPU2
In step 4, the counter (not shown) is set to 0 to cache the data at the boundary of zone 0 (S1), and the data for the last three sectors of zone Z0 shown in FIG. 7 is read (S).
2). That is, here, when the recording / reproducing frequency is switched, since the optical disk 32 rotates, it passes through 2 to 3 sectors, so that the data for the final 3 sectors is read as described in FIG. The MPU 24 stores the read data in the read / write buffer 29 (S3), then increments the counter by 1 to read the data of zone 1 (S4), and reads / writes the data of the last 3 sectors of all zones. It is determined whether the data is stored in 29 (S5). Here, since the data of the zone Z0 has just been stored, the process returns to S2 again, and the data of the last three sectors of the next zone Z1 is read / write buffer 29.
The process of storing in. In this way, MPU24 is S2-S
By repeatedly performing the processing of No. 5, the data for the last three sectors in each of the zones Z0 to Z5 is read / write buffer 29.
Store to. When all the data has been stored, a standby state waiting for access from the host computer 22 is entered. Although the above processing is described as the processing when the power is turned on, the same processing is performed when the optical disc 32 is mounted in the device.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart showing the flow of processing when a read request is issued from the host computer 22. In FIG. 10, as an example, the sector A _n−3 of the zone A to the sector B of the next zone B shown in FIG.
The processing when there is a read request for the two zones up to 4 will be described. First, when a read request from the host computer 22 is received, the MPU 24 controls each unit and the sector A, which is the first sector of the request of the zone A.
_{The n-3} data is read from the optical disc 32 and transferred to the host computer 22 (S1). In addition, MPU24
Reads out the data in the sector A _n-3 , the time T _{1 in} FIG.
Then, the disk R / W unit 30 is instructed to switch to the recording / reproducing frequency corresponding to the next zone B (S2). In this case, it takes time for three sectors to stabilize the recording / reproducing frequency to the frequency corresponding to the next zone, so that the last three sectors of the zone A, that is, the sectors A _n-2 , A _n-1 , A. _The recording / reproducing frequency is switched during the passage of _n . During this frequency switching time, since the data for the last 3 sectors is cached in the read / write buffer 29 in advance, the MPU
24 is the next sector A from the read / write buffer 29.
Data of _n-2 , A _n-1 , and A _n are sequentially read and transferred to the host computer 22 (S3). On the other hand, at time T ₂ in FIG. 8, the recording / reproducing frequency corresponding to the next zone B is switched, so that the MPU 24 directly reads the zone B from the optical disc 32.
Reading of the sector B ₁ .about.B ₄ data, and transfers to the host computer 22 (S4). This completes the processing for the read request from the host computer 22.

On the other hand, when recording information, the data of the sector corresponding to the above-mentioned recording / reproducing frequency switching area is written in the read / write buffer 29. The data temporarily stored in the read / write buffer 29 is written in the sector of the zone boundary of the optical disc 32 when the power of the device is cut off or when the optical disc 32 is removed from the device. FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing when the system is shut down (or when the optical disk is removed). First, the counter is set to 0 to write back the boundary data to zone 0 (S1). Then, the data for the last three sectors at the boundary of zone 0 is read from the read / write buffer 29 and sequentially written back to the corresponding zone 0 zone of the optical disc 32 (S2). When all the data is written back to the last 3 sectors of zone 0, 1 is added to the counter to set zone 1 (S3), and it is determined whether the data has been written back to all zones (S4). Since the processing of zone 0 has just been completed here, the process returns to S2 and the data is written back from the read / write buffer 29 to the last 3 sectors of the next zone 1. By repeating S2 to S4 in this way, all the data cached in the read / write buffer 29 is written back to the corresponding position of the optical disc 32. Then, when all the data has been written back to the optical disc 32, the power-off or the removal of the optical disc is permitted.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the data in the recording / reproducing frequency switching area at the zone boundary of the optical disc is cached in the read / write buffer at the time of reproducing information or recording information, so that the data is spread over two zones. Playback or recording can be performed continuously. Therefore, when performing reproduction or recording over two zones, it is not necessary to wait for one rotation of the disk for each zone, and the reproduction or recording speed can be remarkably increased as compared with the conventional case. In this embodiment, only the data at the zone boundary is cached, but other data may be cached at the same time, and the priority of the cache at the zone boundary may be increased at this time. As a method of increasing the priority, for example, since the memory capacity is limited, it is necessary to sweep out the data when the data reaches the allowable amount, but the data at the zone boundary portion may not be swept out. Further, in the embodiment, the apparatus of the system for switching the recording / reproducing frequency for each zone is shown as an example, but it goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to the system for switching the rotation speed of the optical disk for each zone.

[0025]

As described above, according to the present invention, a data block that does not belong to either a data area or a substitute area is provided in the recording area of the information recording medium to store the cache management data. The cache memory can be set up immediately based on the management data immediately after it is installed in the device, and this has the effect that the cache effect of the cache memory can be expected immediately. In addition, by caching the data in the recording / reproducing frequency or recording medium rotation speed switching area at the zone boundaries, it is possible to continuously reproduce or record information over a plurality of zones, and to improve the reproduction or recording speed of information. There is an effect that the speed can be remarkably increased as compared with the conventional one.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an information recording / reproducing apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of zones of an optical disc used in the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a specific example of cache management data used in the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a flow of processing at the time of ejecting the optical disc in the embodiment of FIG.

5 is a flow chart showing the flow of processing when the power is turned on and when an optical disc is loaded in the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing another embodiment of the information recording / reproducing apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a zone division state of an optical disc used in the embodiment of FIG.

8 is a diagram showing a sector of a zone boundary of the optical disk of FIG. 7 and a switching timing of a recording / reproducing frequency at the zone boundary.

9 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing when the power is turned on in the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a processing flow when reproduction is performed over two zones in the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing a processing flow at shutdown in the embodiment of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1, 22 Host computer 2, 21 Information recording / reproducing device 4 Optical disk controller 5 CPU 8, 32 Optical disk 11 Buffer RAM 24 MPU 29 Read / write buffer

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. Information is recorded or reproduced on an exchangeable information recording medium based on an instruction from a host controller, and
Information in which a part of the record information of the recording medium is stored in the cache memory, and when the information instructed to be reproduced by the host controller is in the cache memory, the information in the cache memory is read and transferred to the host controller. In the recording / reproducing apparatus, management data for managing data cached in the cache memory in the data recording area of the information recording medium is provided with a data block that does not belong to either the data area or the alternative area. An information recording / reproducing apparatus, which stores information. 2. The information recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the data block is a surplus sector generated when the recording area of the information recording medium is divided into a plurality of zones. 3. A recording area of a disc-shaped information recording medium is divided into a plurality of zones in the radial direction, and information is recorded or recorded by switching to a recording / reproducing frequency or a recording medium rotation speed corresponding to each zone. In an information recording / reproducing apparatus for reproducing, a buffer memory for caching data in a recording / reproducing frequency or recording medium rotation speed switching area at a zone boundary of the information recording medium is provided, and the information is recorded in the switching area when recording information. Data is temporarily stored in the buffer memory, or at the time of information reproduction, the data in the switching area is read from a buffer memory previously stored as cache data.