JPH05325496A - Disk device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve data processing speed of the whole device and to achieve maintenance of its case size, low power consumption and low cost. CONSTITUTION:The processing speed of the whole device is improved by possessing more than one mechanism part and efficiently distributing read and write of data from an external host device to the individual mechanism parts by an electronic circuit. Moreover, the electronic circuit is provided with an electric power control part to utilize average electric power from an external power source. Then, by setting more than one mechanism part of a smaller standard size in the industry into an external auxiliary storage device of a larger standard size in the industry, the cost is lowered owing to mass production of the mechanism part of one kind of size. Then, since data is distributed to the individual mechanism parts, mechanical waiting time is overlapped, and hence high speed processing can be carried out. Moreover, since the electric power is smoothened by the electric power control part, the external power source of a small capacity can be used.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a disk device having a rotary type recording / reproducing medium such as a magnetic disk device or an optical disk device used as an auxiliary storage device of an electronic data processing device, and more particularly to maintaining a housing size. While lowering the price /
The present invention relates to a disk device having high performance and low power consumption.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For users of disk devices,
Realization of large capacity in a small device, speeding up data read / write speed for users who use disk devices,
There are demands for improving reliability so that user data cannot be read and written, and for reducing power consumption of the disk device.

In response to these demands, in order to increase the capacity, this is achieved by improving the data recording / reproducing medium, improving the head for reading and writing data, and mounting the mechanism at a high density by thinning the data recording / reproducing medium. is doing. In order to increase the speed of the disk device, there is an approach from the mechanism and the electronic circuit. The speedup of the mechanism is called the access time of the head, which is the time required to move from the current position to the target position + the rotation waiting time (generally, the time for half rotation of the data recording / reproducing medium). Shortening, and for this,
High-speed movement of the head, positioning, and improvement of the rotation speed realize the speed-up of the mechanism. In addition, as an approach from an electronic circuit for speeding up the disk device,
Techniques such as high-speed data reading and writing can be mentioned. In order to improve the reliability of the disk drive, an improvement in durability of parts of each part of the disk device and a method of multiple writing called a mirror disk have been devised and commercialized. Furthermore, in order to reduce the power consumption of the disk drive, various operation modes (for example, read
By providing the device with a mode desired by the user, a low power consumption is realized.

In response to these user requests, a device that is small in size and has a large capacity is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 7348/1993.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 3-104076 can be cited as an example in which speeding up and improvement in reliability are realized.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In the former prior application mentioned above, a medium having a multi-stage structure is used in which a data recording / reproducing medium is multi-tiered on one rotary shaft. A part of the medium of the other rotating mechanism portion enters into the space of the gap, and the medium of the two rotating mechanism portions partially overlaps each other in plan view, thereby reducing the size of the device. And an increase in capacity due to an increase in the number of recording media.

However, today, in order to increase the capacity of the disk device, the recording / reproducing medium has been made thinner and the recording / reproducing medium interval has been shortened. For example, in the case of a 2.5-inch magnetic disk device (2.5-inch hard disk device),
High-density mounting has been realized up to a plate thickness of the magnetic recording / reproducing medium of 1 mm and a medium interval of about 2 mm. If such high density is performed, in the former prior art of the former application, the medium may come into contact unless the balance of the rotating shafts of the two rotating mechanism portions is accurately obtained. come. Therefore, assembly and adjustment become difficult. Further, since the medium is thin, there is a problem in that the tip of the recording medium vibrates when the medium is rotated by the motor, and there is a possibility that the recording medium may come into contact with the recording medium at the time of rotation even if it does not come into contact with the medium at the time of stop.

In order to increase the speed and reliability of the disk device, it is of course necessary to improve the moving pattern of the head at high speed and the positioning, the positioning control method, and the number of revolutions as described above. Is. In the latter prior application described above, the speed and reliability are improved by adopting the following configuration in addition to these elements. That is, in the latter prior application, by providing a plurality of rotating mechanism parts in which the data recording / reproducing medium is multi-tiered on one rotating shaft and using a common head positioning mechanism part for them, a plurality of sets are simultaneously formed. Positioning the head on the recording / reproducing medium of the rotating mechanism of
A method has been adopted in which reliability is improved by speeding up access and by simultaneously reading and writing the same data by reading and writing parallel data.

However, at present, the positioning accuracy of the head is such that the data track interval is 8 in the case of a magnetic disk device.
μm or less, track head positioning error is ± 0.2
It is required to have a high precision of μ mpp or less. By the way, in the case of a magnetic disk device, the internal capacity is 5
Since the temperature is 0 ° C., the mechanical section easily changes by several μm due to thermal expansion, and it is practical that one head drive section simultaneously positions two or more heads to read / write data. There was a problem with being impossible.

Incidentally, in order to reduce the conventional power consumption, various modes prepared as device specifications as described above are used.
This is realized by instructing the disk device to the disk device, and the device itself does not actively reduce power consumption.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points,
It is an object of the invention to realize a disk device capable of maintaining a large capacity and a small size as a device that can be reasonably assembled with a low cost. Another object of the present invention is to achieve an average utilization of the electric power of the disk device, to suppress the electric power consumption, and to realize a low capacity of the external power supply. Still another object of the present invention is to improve the data read / write speed of the disk device.

[0011]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a disk device according to the present invention comprises a disk-shaped medium for recording / reproducing data, a drive unit for rotating the medium, and reading / writing of data. Two or more mechanical units including a head for performing and a head driving unit for moving the head to a target position are provided in one housing.

Further, in order not to disturb the flow of air in the housing, a rectifying plate is provided in the housing of the disk device.

Further, an HDA (Hard Disk Assembler) including an enclosed mechanical section and an electronic circuit for controlling the mechanical section.
When two or more bly) are connected to realize a disk device, HDA is used for exchanging data and the like between the mechanical units.
A connection terminal surface is provided on the connection surface between them.

Further, the electronic circuit board for controlling the disk device is provided with a power control section in order to smooth the power consumption.

Further, as a method of managing data in the disk device, a user area and a spare area corresponding to the destruction of the user area are allocated to different mechanical units.

[0016]

The disk device has an industry standard size (referred to as de facto standard). There are many kinds of standard sizes, and the sizes are such that the area ratio of the surface with the largest area is an integral multiple.
Therefore, when a certain disk device is realized, two or more mechanical parts smaller than the disk device for realizing this can be enclosed. By doing so, the disk device manufacturer does not need to newly develop a recording / reproducing medium or a head for reading / writing data. Further, since the de facto standard is adhered to, the data recording / reproducing media do not spatially overlap. Further, in terms of capacity, the small-sized mechanical section also has a smaller thickness of the recording / reproducing medium and the medium interval, so that high-density mounting can be realized mechanically.

In the case where a disk device is realized by enclosing a set of mechanical parts in a housing and connecting an HDA (Hard Disk Assembly) consisting of the mechanical parts and an electronic circuit board for controlling the mechanical parts. By providing a connection terminal surface on the connection surface between HDAs for exchanging data for controlling each mechanical unit of each HDA, electrical connection between HDAs can be easily and surely made, Since the connector for is not required, the de facto standard can be surely protected.

Further, by providing the electric power control unit in the electronic circuit, it is possible to suppress the peak power consumption, which the external power source is not good at, with respect to the external power source of the disk device, achieve the average power consumption, and reduce the power consumption. It becomes possible to make electricity. As a result, it is not necessary to prepare an external power source having a large capacity and a large outer shape due to the peak current, which can contribute to downsizing of a device equipped with a disk device.

Further, in the storage area of the disk device, a management area for managing the disk device itself, a user area for storing user data, and a part of the user area become unreadable and unreadable due to an accident. It is a spare area for maintaining the specifications of the disk device in the case where it has become full. Here, if the user area and the spare area for backing up this user area are allocated to different mechanical units, the user area and the spare area for backing up this user area are allocated by one mechanical unit. In this case, the time required for the head to move from the user area to the spare area to the user area can be shortened by overlapping the two mechanism units in terms of time, and the speed of the disk device can be increased.

[0020]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A case where the present invention is applied to a magnetic disk device will be described below with reference to each embodiment shown in FIGS. The present invention can of course be applied to other disk devices such as an optical disk device.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a magnetic disk device having an integrated dustproof cover according to a first embodiment of the present invention with a cover separated. This embodiment is a 2.5 inch HDA
This is an example of realizing a size equivalent to 3.5 inches and 1 inch height by using two (Hard Disk Assembly).

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 is a magnetic disk for storing data (a group of magnetic disks stacked in multiple stages on the same drive shaft;
Hereinafter, referred to as a disc) 2 is a magnetic head for writing and reading data on the disc 1, 3 is a spindle motor for rotating the disc 1, and 4 is a magnetic head 2. Is a VCM (Voice Coil Motor), and these structural elements 1, 2, 3, 4 and the like form a set of HDA mechanical units. 2 sets of HDA mechanical parts (1-4)
Are mounted on the base 5 at predetermined intervals, and the two sets of mechanical parts on the base 5 prevent the disc 1 from being scratched by dust and the magnetic head 2 from being damaged. , Is covered and protected by a single dustproof cover 6. That is, in this embodiment, each of the mechanical units (1 to 4) of the two sets of HDAs has the base 5
It is housed in a single housing consisting of a dustproof cover 6 and a dustproof cover 6, and the two sets of mechanical parts do not overlap in a plane and are compactly arranged so that there is no dead space as much as possible. Reference numeral 7 denotes a head amplifier for amplifying a signal read by the magnetic head 2 from the disk 1, and is arranged on the surface side of the base 5 on which the above-mentioned mechanical portion is attached. 8 is
An electronic circuit board mounted on the outer surface side of the base 5 is driven and controlled independently by the function of the electronic circuit board 8 so that the two sets of mechanical portions are read and written by the magnetic head 2 on the disk 1. To be done.

By the way, the small-sized magnetic disk drive has the following 5.
25 inch full height (147 × 203 × 82 mm), 5.25 inch half height (147 × 203 ×)
41 mm), 3.5 inch (102 x 147 x 41)
mm), 3.5 inch 1 inch height (102 x 1
47 × 25.4 mm), 2.5 inch 1 inch height (74 × 102 × 25.4 mm), 2.5 inch 3/4 inch height (74 × 102 × 19 mm),
The device size has become a de facto standard in the disk industry (hereinafter referred to as de facto standard), such as 1.8 inches (51 × 77 × 15 mm). This device size has a relationship that the inch size of the diameter of the disk for recording the current data and the inch size one rank smaller have a bottom area of 1: 2 when the largest surface is the bottom surface. Is becoming Therefore, for example, by using two 2.5 inch HDAs, a device size of 3.5 inch and 1 inch height can be realized. Of course, 2.5 inch thin type (74
X 102 x 19 mm) 3.5 with 4 HDAs
5. Use 8 inch or 2.5 inch thin HDA.
A 25-inch half height can also be realized.

In this case, if the storage capacity of the magnetic disk device is significantly smaller than that of the same size realized as it is, the magnetic disk device becomes less attractive as a magnetic disk device. .. However, when two 2.5 inch HDAs are used as in the present embodiment, the disk area ratio of 3.5 inch / 2.5 inch is 2: 1 in a simple comparison, but the disk is small. If so, it is clear that 2.5 inch is more advantageous for multilayering the disk due to the thinning of the disk thickness and the miniaturization of the magnetic head. For example, a 3.5-inch 1-inch height currently has three disks built in, but a 2.5-inch 3 / 4-inch height has realized a device having three disks built-in. As you can see, the area is half the 2.5-inch disk, but in the 3.5-inch housing, there are more than twice as many 2.5-inch disks as the 3.5-inch disk. Can be implemented. Therefore, the storage capacity of the device is almost comparable. Therefore, even if a plurality of HDAs are used to realize a device having a size larger than this HDA size, a size equivalent to the above size can be realized by using a plurality of HDAs.

In this case, however, the size of the de facto standard cannot be accommodated unless the method of connecting the 2.5-inch HDAs is devised. Therefore, in this embodiment, as described above, the base 5 for supporting the two sets of HDA mechanical parts (1 to 4) is commonly used. As a result, a 3.5-inch 1-inch height can be realized by using the disk, magnetic head, spindle motor, VCM, and other mechanical parts designed for the 2.5-inch disk as it is. As a maker, it is not necessary to develop a mechanism part corresponding to various disk sizes, and mass production effect can be expected by using a large amount of the same parts. As described above, according to this embodiment, a low-cost magnetic disk device that maintains the de facto standard can be realized. In this example,
Although the dustproof covers 6 that cover the entire mechanism section of the two sets of HDAs are used, of course, the cost may be further reduced by using two 2.5-inch dustproof covers.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of an essential part showing an internal mechanism of a magnetic disk device according to a second embodiment of the present invention. The basic configuration of this embodiment is the same as that of the first embodiment of FIG.
The difference between this embodiment and the first embodiment is that a rectifying plate that adjusts the flow of air is provided in a single housing that houses two sets of HDA mechanical units.

This kind of magnetic disk device (hard disk device) is stable in a low sky of only 0.1 μm or less from the disk due to the flow of air generated when the magnetic head is rotated by the disk spindle motor. It is designed to read / write data while maintaining the flying height. Now, if two or more mechanical parts are built in one housing as in the first embodiment, the air flow generated by the rotation of the disk is often disturbed, and the magnetic head is stable at low altitude. There is a risk that the flying height of the robot may not be maintained. That is, when the magnetic disc 1 is rotated as shown in FIG. 2, the air flow collides with the center of the disk device, disturbing the air flow in the housing and affecting the flying height of the magnetic head. give. Therefore, in the present embodiment, when two or more mechanism parts (1 to 4) are built in one housing, the rectifying plate 9 for adjusting the flow of air is provided so as to separate each mechanism part. ing. By doing so, the air flow due to the rotation of the magnetic disk 1 is made smooth, and the flying height can be stably maintained even in the case of the design that suppresses the flying height of the magnetic head 2 due to high density recording. Become. As described above, according to the present embodiment, it is possible to realize the magnetic disk device capable of maintaining the de facto standard and stably maintaining the low flying height of the magnetic head.

FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view of a magnetic disk device having a separation type dustproof cover according to a third embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, four 2.5-inch HDAs (assuming the height is 3/4 inch) are used to realize a magnetic disk device of a size equivalent to 3.5 inches (41 mm).

In this embodiment as well, as in the first and second embodiments, two sets of HDA mechanical parts (1 to 4) are mounted on one surface of the same base 5, and the base 5 has the same structure. An electronic circuit board 8 is attached to the other surface side. In this embodiment, as described above, the disk device unit comrades including the two sets of HDA mechanical parts (1 to 4) and the electronic circuit board 8 are
By connecting and fixing the respective bases 5 with the fixing screws 10 so that the electronic circuit boards 8 face each other, a magnetic disk device using four 2.5 inch HDAs is constructed. In this embodiment, the mechanical parts of each set of HDAs are individually covered with 2.5-inch dustproof covers 6 '(in FIG. 3, for convenience of illustration,
The lower dust cover 6'is omitted.)

In the case of such a configuration, the area of the electronic circuit board is twice as large as that of the conventional 3.5-inch disk device, and the electronic circuit board 8 is sandwiched by the HDA. It is also possible to prevent electrostatic breakdown of the electronic circuit due to prepared contact. Further, since the two electronic circuit boards 8 and 8 are close to each other, the routing of the wiring is minimized, and the circuit performance is not sacrificed. Also, 2.
Using the disk, magnetic head, spindle motor, VCM and other mechanical parts designed for 5 inches, 3.5
Since an inch disk device size can be realized, it is not necessary for a disk device maker to develop a mechanism unit corresponding to various disk sizes, and mass production effect can be expected by using a large amount of the same parts. As described above, according to this embodiment, it is possible to realize a low-cost magnetic disk device capable of maintaining the de facto standard and preventing accidental electrostatic damage.

FIG. 4 shows the HDA according to the fourth embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view of a separation type magnetic disk device. In this embodiment, two 2.5 inch HDAs 11 (assuming the height is 3/4 inch) are housed in dedicated housings to realize a magnetic disk device of a size equivalent to 3.5 inch 1 inch height. Is shown.

In this embodiment, two 2.5-inch HDA 11 are mounted in a 3.5-inch housing 12 to which an electronic circuit board 8 is attached from the direction of the arrow shown in the figure, so that a 3.5-inch 1-inch height is obtained. A magnetic disk device of a considerable size is constructed. When the 2.5-inch HDA 11 is mounted on the 3.5-inch housing 12, the guide groove 12a corresponding to the protrusion P provided on the housing of the HDA 11 is provided so that the 2.5-inch HDA 11 is mounted in the correct direction. Are provided in a 3.5-inch housing 12.

By the way, the HDA 11 according to the present embodiment.
Does not have an electronic circuit board for controlling this, or has only a partial function of an electronic circuit. This HDA11 alone has a size equivalent to the 3.5 inch 1 inch height of this embodiment. It does not have the function of directly connecting to the interface of an external host connected to the magnetic disk device. However, in the case of the structure of the magnetic disk device of this embodiment, there is a margin in the height direction for 1/4 inch.
The electronic circuit board 8 having a special electronic circuit for controlling two 2.5 inch HDAs 11 can be attached to the 3.5 inch housing 12 as described above, and each HDA 11 can be mounted on the electronic circuit board 8. Low power consumption and high speed access by controlling the driving procedure between
A disk device equivalent in inch height can be realized.

As a result, the disk device manufacturer, like the above-described embodiments, does not have to develop a mechanism section corresponding to various disk sizes, and a mass production effect can be expected by using a large amount of the same parts. .. Furthermore, there is no change in the area from two 2.5 inch electronic circuit boards to one 3.5 inch board, but by using one board, the degree of freedom in arranging parts is improved. Will grow.
Generally, several functional units are packaged in one IC, but one IC must be mounted even if only one functional unit is used in the circuit design. In some cases, it may be difficult to mount components in a 2.5-inch disk device, which has many restrictions on the board area. However, when a 3.5-inch disk device is realized by using two 2.5-inch HDAs, there is a high possibility that the functional units in one IC can be effectively used, and the degree of freedom in mounting components increases. Further, even if the disk device has two or more mechanical parts, only one interface with the controller for instructing the disk device to read and write data is sufficient when viewed as a disk device alone. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the number of electronic components, and it is possible to incorporate an additional function for driving and controlling two HDAs 11 by that amount, which is more than that of a disk device equipped with a 3.5-inch disk. A 3.5-inch disk device composed of two 0.5-inch HDAs can realize a higher-performance disk device. As described above, according to this embodiment, it is possible to realize a high performance magnetic disk device while maintaining the de facto standard. It should be noted that each HDA may be directly fixed on one electronic circuit board, and thereby a magnetic disk device in which a plurality of HDAs are combined may be constructed.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a magnetic disk device according to the fifth embodiment of the present invention. Also in this embodiment, 2.
5 inch HDA11 is stored in a dedicated housing, and two H
By combining the DA 11, a magnetic disk device of a size equivalent to 3.5 inches is realized. In the present embodiment, the electronic circuit board 8 is attached to the housing of each HDA 11, and the side surfaces of the HDA 11 are directly electrically connected.

When realizing a disk device by connecting two or more HDA 11's, if an electronic circuit board 8 is mounted on each HDA 11, it is necessary to exchange data between the electronic circuit boards 8. Become. However, for example, if two 2.5-inch HDAs are used to realize a disk device equivalent to 3.5-inch, having a connector for exchanging data between HDAs means that the 3.5-inch HDA is a de facto standard. It becomes a factor that makes it difficult to maintain. Therefore, in this embodiment, the coupling surface of each HDA 11 is configured as a connection terminal surface 13 for exchanging data between HDAs, and the connection terminal surfaces 13 of two HDA 11 are connected and coupled to each other. The HDA is electrically connected. In this embodiment, power is also supplied from one side to the other side via the connection terminal surface 13.

By doing so, the connection between the HDAs can be easily and surely made, and the situation that the size of the de facto standard of 3.5 inches cannot be satisfied does not occur. The connection terminal surface 13
As the terminal, an ESDI signal terminal in which connection of a plurality of HDAs is considered as an interface may be adopted. In addition, in order to improve the contactability of the connection terminal surface 13 between the HDAs and to adjust the size of the magnetic disk device, a conductive material that electrically connects the terminal surfaces between the connection terminal surfaces 13 is formed. It does not matter if the spacer of is inserted. As described above, according to this embodiment, it is possible to realize a magnetic disk device that maintains the de facto standard and is easily electrically connected. Of course, one HDA may have two or more connection terminal surfaces to realize a magnetic disk device in which three or more HDAs are connected.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a magnetic disk device having a plurality of mechanical parts according to the sixth embodiment of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the magnetic disk device basically comprises a mechanism section 14, a read / write section 15, a controller section 16 and a drive control section 17, which will be described later in this embodiment. The power control unit 18 having the function to perform is provided.

As described above, the mechanism section 14 has a disk 1 which is a rotary storage medium for storing data, a magnetic head 2 for reading and writing data from the disk, and a spin for rotating the disk. The indle motor 3 and the VCM 4 which is a motor for moving the magnetic head to a desired position on the disk.
Etc. The read / write unit 15 is a read / write amplifier 1 for recording / reproducing data on / from a disk.
9 and an AG that aligns the amplitude values of the read signals from the disk
A C (Auto Gain Control) circuit 20, a waveform equivalent circuit 21 that adjusts the shape of the waveform of the read signal, a differentiator 22 for searching for the peak of the read signal, and a VFO (for extracting a waveform clock from the read signal). Variable Freqence
Oscillator) 23 and the clock generated by this VFO are used to find the data recorded on the disk from the read signal, and the code (1-7 code, 2-code) suitable for recording the data on the disk. NRZ (Non Return)
A discriminator circuit 24 for converting into a (Zero) signal and a write clock generator circuit 25 as a reference clock for recording data on the disk. Drive control unit 1
A position signal generating circuit 26 generates position information of the magnetic head read from the magnetic head according to a request from an external host connected to the magnetic disk device, and the position signal is converted into an analog value by an A / D converter 27. To digital values. Based on this digital value, the arithmetic processing circuit 28 performs a digital operation, outputs the operation result to the D / A converter 29, and outputs the operation output to the VCM driver 30.
The voltage / current is converted by and is supplied to the VCM to move the magnetic head to the target position. In addition, the drive control unit 17
A spindle motor control circuit 31 for controlling the rotation of the disc is also included. The controller unit 16 converts a serial NRZ signal into a byte unit capable of exchanging data with a host connected to a magnetic disk device and is an HDC (Hard Disk).
Controller) 32, SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) controller 33, which is a standard interface for sending byte data generated from HDC to the host, and adjusts the data transfer speed difference between SCSI and HDC. And a CPU 35 for controlling the entire magnetic disk device. Here, if the HDC 32 has a hard configuration that allows data to be exchanged from each mechanical section 14 at the same time, a disk device capable of high-speed data processing can be realized. In this embodiment, the mechanical section 14 and the read / write section 1 as described above are used.
5, a power control unit 18 is provided in a configuration having two or more sets of a controller unit 16 and a drive control unit 17.

Today, battery-powered notebook computers and W
S (Work Station) is sold by each company. In the case of this battery drive, the problem is that the peak current is limited to the battery. In the case of a magnetic disk device, a large current of about 1 A is required for 2.5 inch HDA when the spindle rotates. Furthermore, n mechanical parts (n
In the case of the configuration of the present embodiment having at least 2 or more), if the spindle motor is driven at the same time, a peak current of n times will flow, and the capacity is large due to this momentary large current. In other words, a large, heavy and costly battery is required. This is contrary to today's demands for downsizing and weight saving of OA equipment, however, even if a magnetic disk device having a large capacity and a high performance can be realized, the use range is considerably narrowed.

Therefore, in this embodiment, the power control unit 1
8, a power control circuit 36 for monitoring and controlling the power consumption of the disk device and a power storage circuit 37 having a power storage function are provided. The power control circuit 36 of the power control unit 18 is
The power level (current value) currently required by the magnetic disk device is always grasped by the information from the CPU 35 of the controller section 16, and a power supply current is supplied to each section in the magnetic disk apparatus in response to a request from the CPU 35. It is like this. Further, the power control circuit 36 monitors the value of the current supplied from the power supply (battery), and when the power supply capability of the power supply does not satisfy the current level required by the magnetic disk device, the power control circuit 36 adds the current from the power supply side. The electric current from the storage circuit 37 is also used to supply the magnetic disk device. As a result, a small / lightweight / low cost battery can be adopted as a power source. Also,
When the power control circuit 36 is in a state of not more than the current supply capacity of the power supply (the power supply capacity exceeds the power level required by the magnetic disk device) and the storage circuit 37 is not in the full storage state. The power storage circuit 37 is charged with an extra current from the power source.
It should be noted that the power control circuit 36 also executes power control to stop the supply of a portion where power supply is unnecessary, in accordance with a request state (data read / write, no request, etc.) from the external host of the magnetic disk device. That is, unlike the conventional case, the power consumption is actively (automatically) reduced by the power control unit 18 of the disk device instead of reducing the power consumption by instructing various modes by the user. It is like this.

As described above, according to this embodiment, it is possible to use a small-sized / light-weight / low-priced battery as an external power source, and it is possible to realize a magnetic disk device with low peak current and average power consumption. Here, in the case of the present embodiment, the mechanical section 14, the read / write section 15, and the drive control section 17 are illustrated as one set, but the circuit section of the read / write section 15 and the drive control section 17 is placed in advance on the substrate. It is also possible to adopt a configuration in which the mechanism unit 14 can be arbitrarily added according to the request of the user of the magnetic disk device.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of storage area allocation performed in the magnetic disk device according to the seventh embodiment of the present invention. This embodiment is an example of application to a magnetic disk device having two HDA mechanical parts.

As shown in FIG. 7, the storage area 38 on the magnetic disk of the magnetic disk device is roughly divided into a management area 39 for managing the magnetic disk device and a user area for storing user data. 40 and a spare area 41 for compensating the capacity of the magnetic disk device due to an accidental failure of the user area.

Here, the conventional spindle motor and VCM
Is one device each (mechanism unit 14 is one device), if unfortunately a failure occurs in the user area 40, and the failure is prepared as a failure countermeasure for each track. If it cannot be absorbed even by the alternate sector (the case in which this alternate sector corresponds is called alternate sector processing), the track becomes a defective track (butt track) and is registered in the management area 39 as a track that cannot be used by the user. Will be done. The reduced user area 40
Will be assigned to a certain spare area 40 for the spare, and its location is also added to the information previously registered as the bat track and recorded in the management area 39 (allocation of the track of this spare area is changed. Called track processing). With this, the capacity of the magnetic disk device is maintained. However, when the external host reads the data, the user data was normally recorded in continuous tracks. However, when the alternate track processing cuts the track continuity in the middle, the switching time of the magnetic head was originally supposed. In general, the repositioning time of about 1 ms was sufficient, but the moving time of the magnetic head of 10 and several ms was required, and the data reading speed was extremely slow.

Therefore, in this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 7, the storage areas 38 corresponding to the respective mechanical units A and B are provided.
User area 40a corresponding to the mechanical unit A among a and 38b
When the alternate track processing occurs in the control section 39, the alternate track information is recorded in the management area 39a of the mechanical section A, but the actual alternate track destination is assigned to the spare area 41b of the mechanical section B. Similarly, when the alternate track processing occurs in the user area 40b corresponding to the mechanical section B, the alternate track information is recorded in the management area 39b of the mechanical section B, but the actual alternate track destination is the spare area of the mechanical section A. 41a. As a result, when a read / write processing request is issued from the external host, the information in the management areas 39a and 39b should be read in advance into the electronic circuit for controlling the mechanical units A and B when the power is turned on. If
The electronic circuit can determine in advance whether or not the read / write processing is for the user area including the alternate track area. Therefore, in the case of the alternate track processing, the electronic circuit issues a movement instruction to the magnetic heads of the mechanical units A and B to move to the user area / spare area. Area → User area, which required time to move the head, can be temporally overlapped. Therefore, the read processing time can be shortened, and a device capable of high-speed processing can be realized as a magnetic disk device.

By the way, the last description was made, however, as an exchange of data between an external host and a magnetic disk device today, an interface such as SCSI-2 is generally used in a small computer device such as a workstation. .. In such an interface, it is common to connect several external hosts to one magnetic disk device. In this case, the magnetic disk device can receive requests from an external host up to a certain number before each process is completed. Then, on the magnetic disk device side, processing is performed so as to be most efficient (called command queuing). In the case where the magnetic disk device supports such an interface, by having two or more mechanical units as in each embodiment of the present invention, if the instruction of the external host is to user areas of different mechanical units, An electronic circuit for controlling the mechanical section can issue an instruction to move the magnetic head in parallel, and high-speed data processing can be realized for an external host. That is, it is possible to realize a magnetic disk device capable of high-speed processing with respect to an external host. Further, it is possible to improve the reliability against data destruction by causing two sets of HADs to simultaneously read and write the same data. In general, according to each of the embodiments of the present invention, it is possible to maintain the de facto standard and secure the storage capacity, and at the same time, it is possible to achieve high performance by low cost / low power consumption / high-speed data processing.

[0048]

As described above, according to the present invention,
The industry standard housing size (de facto standard) has two or more mechanical parts that are built into the housing that are smaller than the housing size, but the area ratio of the bottom area of this industry standard housing is Since the relationship is an integral multiple, the industry standard housing size can be maintained. This eliminates the need for disk device manufacturers to develop / manufacture mechanical parts such as disks and heads corresponding to various housing sizes, and to reduce the manufacturing cost by making a large number of parts of the same size. There is an effect that price can be realized. Of course, since the mechanism can be mounted at a high density by downsizing the head, thinning the disc, etc., the capacity required by the user will not be reduced compared to the case where only one mechanism fits in the housing. ..

Further, the turbulence of the air flow caused by the rotation of the disk due to the inclusion of two or more mechanical parts in the housing of the industry standard size can be suppressed by providing the straightening plate, and the head can be stabilized. The flying height can be maintained.

When the HDAs are electrically connected,
By providing the connection terminal surface on the contact surface of HDA, HD
The connection between A can be performed easily and surely, and further, it is not necessary to have a connection connector, and the housing size of the industry standard size can be easily maintained.

Further, by providing the electric power control unit on the electronic circuit board for controlling the disk device, it is possible to realize average power consumption with respect to the external power source, and to reduce the size / low capacity of the external power source. The OA device can be realized, and there is an effect that it can contribute to the reduction in size and weight of the OA device as a whole.

Further, since the user area and the spare area for the user area are allocated to different mechanical portions, the head area of the conventional head is smaller than that in the conventional case where the user area and the spare area for the user area are allocated by one mechanical portion. The mechanical movement time for moving from the user area to the spare area to the user area can be shortened by overlapping in time, and a disk device capable of high-speed processing can be realized.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a magnetic disk device according to a first embodiment of the present invention with an integrated dustproof cover removed.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an internal mechanism of a magnetic disk device according to a second embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view of a magnetic disk device having a separation type dustproof cover according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an exploded perspective view of an HDA separation type magnetic disk device according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a magnetic disk device according to a fifth embodiment of the present invention with an HDA separated.

FIG. 6 is a block configuration diagram of a magnetic disk device according to a sixth embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram of storage area allocation performed in a magnetic disk device according to a seventh embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 magnetic disk (disk) 2 magnetic head 3 spindle motor 4 VCM (Voice Coil Motor) 5 base 6, 6'dust cover 8 electronic circuit board 9 current plate 11 HDA (Hard Disk Assembly) 12 housing 13 connection terminal surface 14 Mechanism unit 15 Read / write unit 16 Controller unit 17 Drive control unit 18 Power control unit 36 Power control circuit 37 Power storage circuit 38a, 38b Storage area 39a, 39b Management area 40a, 40b User area 41a, 41b Spare area

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Eisaku Saiki 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Hitachi, Ltd. Microelectronics Equipment Development Laboratory (72) Inventor Katsuhiro Tsuneda 2880 Kunizu, Odawara-shi, Kanagawa Address Stock company Hitachi Odawara factory (72) Inventor Shoichi Miyazawa 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Hitachi, Ltd. Microelectronics equipment development laboratory

Claims (15)

[Claims] 1. A disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium, a drive unit for rotating the disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium, a head for reading and writing data, and a head for moving the head to a target position. A mechanism section including a head drive section, and
A disk device comprising an electronic circuit for realizing the reading and writing of data by the head on the disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium, comprising one or more sets of the mechanical section in one housing, and the disk. A disk device, wherein the disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium of each mechanical section is configured so as not to intersect when the disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium is viewed from the data recording surface. 2. The disk device according to claim 1, wherein a current plate is provided in the housing in order to suppress interference of air flow caused by the operation of each of the mechanical units in the housing. .. 3. The structure according to claim 1, wherein two or more sets of the mechanical units are attached to the same surface of a member forming a part of the casing, and the mechanical units form a part of the casing. A disk device characterized in that it is covered with one lid. 4. A disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium, a drive unit for rotating the disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium, a head for reading and writing data, and a head for moving the head to a target position. A mechanism section including a head drive section, and
A disk device comprising an electronic circuit for realizing the reading and writing of data by the head on the disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium, comprising: a member which has two or more sets of the mechanical section and constitutes a part of a housing. A disk device, wherein two or more sets of the above-mentioned mechanism parts are attached to the same surface, and each of these mechanism parts is individually covered with a lid. 5. The device according to claim 3 or 4, wherein members constituting a part of the housing, to which the two or more sets of the mechanical units are attached, are combined and have four or more sets of the mechanical units. The disk device characterized in that 6. A disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium, a drive unit for rotating the disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium, a head for reading and writing data, and a head for moving the head to a target position. A mechanism section including a head drive section, and
A disk device comprising an electronic circuit for realizing the reading and writing of data by the head on the disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium, wherein each of the mechanical units is enclosed in a casing, and two enclosed casings are provided. A disk device characterized in that the device is configured by combining the above. 7. The disk device according to claim 6, wherein a coupling terminal of a conductor is provided at a coupling portion of the casings for transmitting and receiving at least data between the enclosed casings. 8. The disk device according to claim 7, wherein a part having electrical conductivity is sandwiched between the joint terminals of the joint portion of each of the housings. 9. The device according to claim 6, wherein each of the housings is provided for controlling a mechanical portion in each of the housings.
A disk device characterized by being connected to each other by two electronic circuit boards. 10. A disk-shaped recording / reproducing medium, a drive unit for rotating the disk-shaped recording / reproducing medium, a head for reading and writing data, and a head drive for moving the head to a target position. And a mechanical section including a section and an electronic circuit for realizing reading and writing of data from and to the disk-shaped recording / reproducing medium by n sets (n is 2). A disk device characterized by being equipped with disk control circuits of the above integers), and the mechanical parts can be connected up to the number of the disk control circuits. 11. A disk-shaped recording / reproducing medium, a drive unit for rotating the disk-shaped recording / reproducing medium, a head for reading and writing data, and a head drive for moving the head to a target position. And a mechanism unit including a disk unit and an electronic circuit for realizing the reading and writing of data from and to the disk-shaped recording / reproducing medium by the head, wherein the electronic circuit monitors the power consumption of the disk unit. A disk device comprising a power control unit for controlling the above. 12. A disk-shaped recording / reproducing medium, a drive unit for rotating the disk-shaped recording / reproducing medium, a head for reading and writing data, and a head drive for moving the head to a target position. In a disk device including an electronic circuit for realizing reading and writing of data from and to the disk-shaped recording / reproducing medium by a mechanical section including a section, a power control unit of the electronic circuit has a power storage function. A disk device characterized by having it. 13. The power control unit of the electronic circuit as set forth in claim 12, wherein the power supply state of the power supplied to the disk device is checked, and the power supply capability satisfies the power level required by the disk device. When not present, the disk device is characterized in that the electric power generated by the above-described power storage function is also used. 14. The power control unit of the electronic circuit according to claim 12, wherein a power supply state of power supplied to the disk device is checked, and the power supply capability exceeds a power level required by the disk device. The disk device is characterized in that, when necessary, it is charged by the above-mentioned power storage function as needed. 15. A disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium, a drive unit for rotating the disk-shaped data recording / reproducing medium, a head for reading and writing data, and a head for moving the head to a target position. A disk device having a plurality of mechanical parts including a head drive part and including an electronic circuit for realizing reading and writing of data from and to each of the disk-shaped data recording / reproducing media, the disk device comprising: The disk device, wherein the user area and the spare area of the user area are allocated to the different mechanical units.