Disk drive to coalesce unaligned writes in write operations
View Patent ↗A disk drive to implement write operations requested by a host is disclosed. The disk drive comprises: a disk having a plurality of tracks, wherein each track includes a plurality of physical data sectors; a head actuated over the disk; and control circuitry. The control circuitry is operable to determine if a write request from the host includes logic data that includes unaligned writes, and if so: coalesces nearby writes; performs a group read operation to create a plurality of groups; and performs a write operation to write the logic data to the physical data sectors based upon the plurality of groups, wherein the physical data sectors are written to the disk during a single revolution of the disk.
1. A disk drive to implement write operations requested by a host, the disk drive comprising:
a disk comprising a plurality of tracks, each track including a plurality of physical data sectors;
a head actuated over the disk; and
control circuitry operable to:
determine if a write request from the host includes logic data that includes unaligned writes, wherein the logic data does not completely fill one of the physical data sectors, and if so:
coalesce nearby writes;
perform a group read operation to create a plurality of groups during a single revolution of the disk; and
perform a write operation to write the logic data to the physical data sectors based upon the plurality of groups, wherein the physical data sectors are written to the disk during a single revolution of the disk.
2. The disk drive as recited in claim 1 , wherein the unaligned writes are on the same track of the disk.
3. The disk drive as recited in claim 1 , wherein groups of the plurality of groups are adjacent to one another.
4. The disk drive as recited in claim 1 , wherein groups of the plurality of groups are not adjacent to one another.
5. The disk drive as recited in claim 1 , further comprising a cache memory, wherein the write operations are based upon flushing the cache memory.
6. The disk drive as recited in claim 5 , wherein if the cache memory stores all of the logic data of the data sector, the physical data sector is not read.
7. The disk drive as recited in claim 5 , wherein write operations for the flushing of the cache memory is performed for a single track.
8. The disk drive as recited in claim 5 , wherein write operations for the flushing of the cache memory is performed for a plurality of tracks.
9. The disk drive as recited in claim 5 , wherein the write request is selected based upon rotational positional optimization.
10. A method to implement write operations requested by a host for a disk drive comprising:
determining if a write request from the host includes logic data that includes unaligned writes, wherein the logic data does not completely fill one of a plurality of physical data sectors, and if so:
coalescing nearby writes;
performing a group read operation to create a plurality of groups during a single revolution of the disk; and
performing a write operation to write the logic data to the physical data sectors based upon the plurality of groups, wherein the physical data sectors are written to the disk during a single revolution of the disk.
11. The method as recited in claim 10 , wherein the unaligned writes are on the same track of the disk.
12. The method as recited in claim 10 , wherein groups of the plurality of groups are adjacent to one another.
13. The method as recited in claim 10 , wherein groups of the plurality of groups are not adjacent to one another.
14. The method as recited in claim 10 , wherein the write operations are based upon flushing a cache memory.
15. The method as recited in claim 14 , wherein if the cache memory stores all of the logic data of the data sector, the physical data sector is not read.
16. The method as recited in claim 14 , wherein write operations for the flushing of the cache memory is performed for a single track.
17. The method as recited in claim 14 , wherein write operations for the flushing of the cache memory is performed for a plurality of tracks.
18. The method as recited in claim 14 , wherein the write request is selected based upon rotational positional optimization.
19. A disk drive to implement write operations requested by a host, the disk drive comprising:
a disk comprising a plurality of tracks, each track including a plurality of physical data sectors;
a head actuated over the disk; and
control circuitry operable to:
determine if a write request from the host includes logic data that includes unaligned writes, wherein the logic data does not completely fill one of the physical data sectors, and if so:
coalesce nearby writes;
perform a group read operation to create a plurality of groups during a single revolution of the disk, wherein the plurality of groups correspond to physical data which correspond to the logic data in the write request; and
perform a write operation to write the logic data to the physical data sectors based upon the plurality of groups, wherein the physical data sectors are written to the disk during a single revolution of the disk.