JPS58119067A - Disk device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To detect a fault occurrence part easily and to improve operability, by operating a switching part provided between a device circuit part which operates under the command of a host device and a medium part which operates under the command of the device circuit part. CONSTITUTION:Plural device circuit parts 11-0-11-m which operate under the command of the host device 14 are provided. Then, plural medium parts 12-0- 11-n which operate under the command of the device circuit parts 11-i are provided and the switching part 13 is provided between the device circuit parts 11-i and medium parts 12-i to select the combinations of the device circuit parts 11-i and medium parts 12-i. Further, a maintenance device 15 is connected to the switching part 13. Consequently, if some device has a fault, the combinations are changed to find the fault part easily and switching to a normal circuit is performed to prevent a decrease in operating rate.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a disk device, and more particularly to a disk device including at least one of either a device circuit section or a medium section, and a plurality of the other one.

A conventional disk device, for example, a magnetic disk device, is connected to a host device and mainly sends and receives information signals and control signals, as well as a device circuit section (hereinafter referred to as a circuit section) that sends and receives read/write signals and positioning signals to and from the medium section. A medium unit (hereinafter referred to as IDA) that mainly records information by exchanging read/write signals and positioning signals with the circuit unit, which is equipped with a recording magnetic disk and a magnetic head (hereinafter referred to as IDA).
are connected one-to-one to constitute one unit, and one or two units constitute one magnetic disk device.

When a failure occurs in either the circuit section or the HDA of a unit with such a configuration (hereinafter referred to as the "human unit"), in order to determine which one is the problem, check the other normally operating unit (hereinafter referred to as "B"). unit),
The connections between the circuit sections of these units and the HDA are exchanged (hereinafter referred to as swap), that is, the circuit sections of A unit and B
HDA% of the unit A method is used in which the circuit section of the B unit and the HDA of the A unit are connected, and the location of the cause of the failure is determined by determining which combination of these causes the same failure. .

The above determination method requires the operator to manually insert and unplug the connector of the cable that connects the circuit section and the HDA, so instead of using a scale that requires a lot of man-hours to perform the work, it can be done automatically based on commands from a host device, etc. The drawback is that it is impossible to perform so-called automatic determination, which is to identify the location of the failure.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a disk device that, when a failure occurs, can easily and automatically switch connections to determine the location of the cause of the failure.

The disk device of the present invention includes a device circuit section that operates in accordance with instructions from a host device and exchanges information with the host device;
a medium section that operates according to commands from the device circuit section and exchanges information with the device circuit section, and is interposed between the device circuit section and the medium section to At least one of the medium sections and a plurality of the other medium sections are connected, and the connection combination of the device circuit section and the medium section is switched to an arbitrary combination according to a command from the host device or the maintenance device. It is configured to include a switching section.

Next, the present invention will be explained in detail with reference to the drawings.

Referring to FIG. 1 showing a first embodiment of the present invention, two device circuit sections (circuit sections) 1-0 and 1-1, and two medium sections (HDA) 2-0 and 2. -1 are both connected to the switching section 3, and inside the switching section 3, for example, the circuit section 1-
0 and HDA2-0, and circuit 51-1 and HDA2-0.
A combination of these connections is selected such that 1 and 1 are connected.

When the circuit section 1-0 receives an operation command signal and an information signal 101 from the host device 4 in this state, it sends the operation command signal and information signal 102 to the HDA 2-0 via the switching section 3 for a reading or writing operation. Have them do it. At this time, if a failure occurs in either the circuit unit 1-Of or the HDA 2-0, this failure status report is sent to the higher-level device 4, so the higher-level device 4 sends a switching command signal 104 to the switching unit.

When the switching unit 3 receives this switching command signal 104, it disconnects the circuit unit 1-0 of the combination in which the fault has occurred and the HDA 2-0, and disconnects the circuit unit 1 of the combination that is operating normally.
-1 and HDA 2-1 are also disconnected, circuit section 1-0 and HDA 2-1 and circuit section 1-1 and HDA 2-0 are connected, and a connection completion signal 105 is sent to host device 4.

By knowing which combination causes the fault, it is possible to determine where the cause of the fault is located: circuit section 1-0 and HDA 2.
It is possible to determine whether the value is between -0 and -0.

In addition to the switching command signal 104 from the host device 4, the connection switching in the switching unit is performed using a protection 9 that is normally provided separately.
It is also possible to perform the switching by providing a switching command operating section in the device 5 and operating the switching command operating section to send the switching command signal 104' to the switching section 3.

FIG. 2 shows a second embodiment of the present invention, in which the device circuit section (al
This is an example in which there are three or more circuit sections and medium sections CHDA').

In the figure, circuit sections 11-0, ..., 11-m
and HDA12-0. ...-..., 12-n (
m=n) is connected to the switching section 13, and the circuit section and the HD
The connection combinations A are arbitrarily selected by the switching unit 13. If a failure occurs in any of the circuit units or HDA connected in one specific combination among these arbitrary combinations, the host device 140 command or the maintenance device 15 can be used to confirm that it is operating normally or not. As mentioned above, it is possible to determine whether the fault original diagram is located in the circuit section or in the HDA by selecting any one of the combinations and swapping the connections with the specific combination in which the fault has occurred. This is exactly the same as in the first embodiment.

In the above-mentioned second embodiment, the circuit section or the HDA, whichever has a higher failure rate, for example, the number of circuit sections is set to be larger than the number of HDAs, that is, m>n, and an extra circuit section or a spare circuit section is used. It can also be used as

In this case, when a fault occurs in any one of the normally used circuit sections, the switching section 13 switches the HDA connected to the faulty circuit section to connect it to the spare circuit section. As a result, it is possible to switch to the standby circuit section without interrupting business operations.

Furthermore, -1 For example, due to a failure or some other internal problem, one of the multiple circuit units is disconnected from the switching unit, and the number of circuit units becomes smaller than the number of HDAs. In other words, when m(n), it is also possible to perform a so-called degenerate operation in which all HDAs are operated with a smaller number of circuit units than the number of HDAs.

In other words, the circuit section and HD A are always controlled by the host device.
A degenerate operation can be achieved by monitoring the operating status of the HDA and appropriately giving a command to the switching unit to connect a circuit unit that is available for use to a desired HDA. This makes it possible to use the recorded contents of all HDAs connected to the switching section, resulting in a highly reliable magnetic disk device.

The above embodiment is an example of a magnetic disk device, but as is clear from the above description, the same applies to other disk devices having a device circuit section and a medium section, such as an optical disk device. .

As explained in detail above, by using the disk device of the present invention, in the event of a failure, it is possible to easily switch connections before determining the location of the failure, and to enable automatic determination. .

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a first embodiment of the invention, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram of another embodiment of the invention. In the figure, 1-0.1-1... device circuit section, 2-0.2-
1... Media section, 3... Switching section, 4...
...Upper device, 5...Maintenance device, 11-0
．． ...Song, 11-m...Song device circuit section, 12-0.・・・
Song, 12-n... Song medium section 13... Switching section, 14... Song host device, 15... Song storage rod 1 Figure

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A device circuit section that operates in accordance with commands from a higher-level device and exchanges information with the higher-level device; A medium section that exchanges information between the device circuit section and the medium section is interposed between the device circuit section and the medium section, and includes at least one one of the device circuit section or the medium section and a plurality of the other 1. A disk device comprising: a switching section which connects the individual devices and switches a connection combination between the device circuit section and the medium section to an arbitrary combination according to a command from the host device or the maintenance device.