System and method for writing data to dedicated bands of a hard disk drive
View Patent ↗Data is written to a hard disk drive using shingled writing principles, i.e., each data track is partially overwritten when an immediately contiguous data track is written. Two or more contiguous data tracks establish a band, and a band may store data from one and only one file, such as an AV file.
1. A hard disk drive, comprising:
(a) disk storage means for holding data in at least one of:
(i) bands comprising a plurality of tracks and
(ii) isolated tracks;
(b) means for writing data to said disk storage means;
(c) means for controlling said means for writing data such that data from one and only one file or AV stream is written to a band on the disk storage means such that if a last allocated band for a file or AV stream is only partially full when said file or AV stream has been completely written to the storage means, then the remaining space is not used;
wherein the means for controlling cause the means for writing to write shingled tracks.
2. The HDD of claim 1 , wherein the means for writing is configured for perpendicular recording.
3. The HDD of claim 1 , wherein a first band has a fist number of tracks and a second band has a second number of tracks different from the first.
4. The HDD of claim 1 , wherein the disk storage means is partitioned into isolated tracks and bands of tracks.
5. The HDD of claim 1 , wherein audio video (AV) data is stored in at least one band.
6. The HDD of claim 5 , wherein the sizes of bands are larger than an AV transaction block size.
7. The HDD of claim 1 , wherein the means for controlling stores, for each file or AV data stream, a list of bands associated therewith.