KR200229996Y1 - An external storage device being applicable to plural interfaces - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to computer hardware technology, and more particularly, to an external storage device supporting a plurality of interfaces, and to provide an external storage device having a general purpose to support a variety of interfaces. An external storage device of the present invention for solving the above technical problem, the drive means for driving a disk for storing predetermined data; Power supply means for supplying power to the drive means; Interface means for exchanging data between the computer and the disk; And a housing for protecting the driving means, the power supply means, and the interface means, wherein the interface means comprises: a sensing unit for sensing an interface method of a port of the connected computer, and a standard interface for an external storage device. A data conversion comprising a standard connection for providing, and a plurality of data converters for performing data conversion between the standard interface method for the external storage device and the interface method of the port of the computer, depending on the detection result of the sensing means. It is characterized by comprising a part.

Description

An external storage device being applicable to plural interfaces}

The present invention relates to computer hardware technology, and more particularly to an external storage device supporting a number of interfaces.

Computers such as desktop PCs and notebook computers have auxiliary storage devices for storing data. Representative auxiliary storage devices include floppy disks and hard disks. Floppy disk has the advantage of being easy to carry, but the information storage capacity of 1.44 megabytes can not store a large amount of information. On the other hand, the hard disk has the advantage of having a large information storage capacity of about 40 gigabytes in recent years, it is difficult to move or carry.

On the other hand, auxiliary storage devices such as CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, LS-120, etc. are also increasing rapidly. Recently, a lot of additional memory space is used for the use of large-capacity multimedia files such as MPEG, MP3 and data backup. It became necessary.

In order to solve the shortcomings of the internal auxiliary storage device, an external storage device such as an external hard disk, a CD-ROM, or an LS-120 is used. Such an external storage device can be used for expensive software in addition to the basic effect of data backup or hard disk capacity. It not only has the advantage of being suitable for common use or quick installation of large-capacity software, but also improves the utilization of PC without driver of specific auxiliary memory such as CD-ROM.

Conventional commercially available external storage devices use various interface methods such as a parallel interface, a PCMCIA interface, a USB interface, and a P1394 interface. This means that the conventional external storage device is configured to support only one specific interface method.

Therefore, an external storage device connected to a PC cannot be applied to a notebook, and even if the same PC is used, the external storage device may not be used depending on a PC environment (supporting connection port).

Until now, there has been a problem of purchasing a product suitable for a PC environment to be used when purchasing an external storage device or adding a port of a PC to the external storage device.

The present invention is proposed to solve the above problems of the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide an external storage device having a versatility to support various interfaces.

1 is a block diagram of an external storage device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

* Explanation of symbols for the main parts of the drawings

10: disk driver unit 11: multiple interface unit

12: automatic detection circuit 13: parallel / ATAPI converter

14 PCMCIA / ATAPI Converter 15 USB / ATAPI Converter

16: P1394 / ATAPI Converter 17: ATAPI Connector

18: PC port

An external storage device of the present invention for solving the above technical problem, the drive means for driving a disk for storing predetermined data; Power supply means for supplying power to the drive means; Interface means for exchanging data between the computer and the disk; And a housing for protecting the driving means, the power supply means, and the interface means, wherein the interface means comprises: a sensing unit for sensing an interface method of a port of the connected computer, and a standard interface for an external storage device. A data conversion comprising a standard connection for providing, and a plurality of data converters for performing data conversion between the standard interface method for the external storage device and the interface method of the port of the computer, depending on the detection result of the sensing means. It is characterized by comprising a part.

Preferably, the standard connection is equipped with an Advanced Technology Attachment Packet Interface (ATAPI) connector.

Preferably, the data converter includes a parallel / ATAPI converter, a personal computer memory card international association (PCMCIA) / ATAPI converter, a universal serial bus (USB) / ATAPI converter, and a P1394 / ATAPI converter.

Preferably, the disk is any one of a CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, LS-120.

Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be introduced in order to enable those skilled in the art to more easily carry out the present invention.

1 is a block diagram of an external storage device according to an embodiment of the present invention, which will be described below with reference to the drawings.

The external storage device according to the present embodiment is largely comprised of a disk driver 10 and a multi interface unit 11. The disk driver 10 includes a hard disk, a CD-ROM, a CD-RW, a DVD, and an auxiliary storage device (disk) such as the LS-120, a disk driver, and a power supply unit, and the multi interface unit 11 detects automatically. A circuit 12, a parallel / ATAPI converter 13, a PCMCIA / ATAPI converter 14, a USB / ATAPI converter 15, a P1394 / ATAPI converter 16, and an ATAPI connector 17 are provided.

The automatic sensing circuit 12 is disposed at the tip of the multiple interface unit 11 to detect which interface signal the data input from the PC port 18 (eg, parallel port, PCMCIA port, USB port, P1394 port, etc.) is. And output to the corresponding converter, and receives the data from the specific converter according to the type of the PC port 18 connected to the output to the PC port 18.

Parallel / ATAPI converter (13), Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) / ATAPI converter (14), Universal Serial Bus (USB) / ATAPI converter (15), and P1394 / ATAPI converter (16) are each external. Performs data conversion between ATAPI, the storage interface's standard interface, and other interfaces.

The ATAPI connector 17 provides an ATAPI interface with the disk driver unit 10.

For reference, Advanced Technology Attachment Packet Interface (ATAPI) is a standard interface between a computer and external storage. Most PCs today use a standard IDE interface to refer to hard disk drives. ATAPI provides additional commands for controlling CD-ROM players, tape backups, etc., allowing computers to use IDE interfaces and controllers to control relatively new devices.

Hereinafter, the operation of the external storage device according to the present embodiment will be described.

When data is transferred from the PC port 18 according to the write command, the automatic sensing circuit 12 automatically detects which port the PC port 18 is and selects a converter. If the detected PC port 18 is a USB port, the automatic sensing circuit 12 selects the USB / ATAPI converter 15 to output data. The converted ATAPI data is input to the disk driver section 10 through the ATAPI connector 17 and recorded on the disk.

On the other hand, if there is a read command, the data stored in the disk is output to the ATAPI connector 17, and the ATAPI data output from the ATAPI connector 17 depends on the type of the PC port 18 detected by the automatic sensing circuit 12. It is entered into a specific converter. If the detected PC port 18 is a USB port, the USB / ATAPI converter 15 of the converter is opened to accept the data and convert the input ATAPI data into the USB data by the USB / ATAPI converter 15. The converted data is transmitted to the PC port 18 through the automatic sensing circuit.

The external storage device configured and operated as described above can be used regardless of the PC (or notebook) environment, so that an external storage device that adds a separate port to the PC (or notebook) or supports a specific interface to access the external storage device. There is no need to purchase a new device.

The present invention described above is not limited to the above-described embodiment and the accompanying drawings, and various substitutions, modifications, and changes are possible in the art without departing from the technical spirit of the present invention. It will be clear to those of ordinary knowledge.

The present invention described above can provide various interfaces regardless of the PC (or notebook) environment, thereby eliminating the need to add an additional PC port or purchase an external storage device supporting a specific interface.

Claims (4)

Driving means for driving a disk for storing predetermined data; Power supply means for supplying power to the drive means; Interface means for exchanging data between the computer and the disk; And A housing for protecting the drive means, the power supply means and the interface means, The interface means, A sensing unit for sensing an interface method of a port of the connected computer; Standard connections to provide a standard interface for external storage devices, A data conversion unit including a plurality of data converters for selectively converting data between the standard interface method for the external storage device and the interface method of the port of the computer according to a sensing result of the sensing means; External storage device comprising a. The method of claim 1, The standard connection unit is an external storage device characterized in that it comprises an ATAPI (Advanced Technology Attachment Packet Interface) connector. The method of claim 2, The data conversion unit includes a parallel / ATAPI converter, a PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) / ATAPI converter, a universal serial bus (USB) / ATAPI converter, and a P1394 / ATAPI converter. The method according to claim 1 or 2, The disk is an external storage device, characterized in that any one of CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, LS-120.