Random read performance of optical media library

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016196072-A1
Application number	US-201514589053-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jan 5, 2015
Priority date	Jan 5, 2015
Publication date	Jul 7, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Embodiments relate to data storage media, and reading data from the media and writing data to the media. A data structure is provided to identify storage location and/or media parameters. One or more parameters of storage media is pre-loaded and conveyed to an associated media accessor prior to transferring data across the storage media in support of an associated read or write request.

First claim

We claim:

1 . A method comprising:
configuring one or more media accessors in communication with a data interface for transferring data; pre-loading one or more characteristic parameters of a storage medium; and conveying the pre-loaded one or more parameters from a shared location to the one or more media accessors over the interface prior to data transfer across the storage medium.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying media based on the pre-loaded parameters, and selecting and delivering the identified media from a library to the one or more media accessors.

3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising updating the parameters, including retrieving media parameters from the accessors through the interface.

4 . The method of claim 2 , wherein at least one media accessor is an optical disk drive, and the media is an optical disc.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more characteristic parameters includes type and format of the medium.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more characteristic parameters includes a mapping of logical block addresses to physical block addresses.

7 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising discovering the media parameters from data contained in the media, and constructing a database in the shared location, the database including the discovered media parameters.

8 . A computer program product for reading and writing data to a storage medium, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage device having program code embodied therewith, the program code executable by a processing unit to:
configure one or more media accessors in communication with a data interface for transferring data; pre-load one or more characteristic parameters of the storage medium; and convey the pre-loaded one or more parameters from a shared location to the one or more media accessors over the interface prior to data transfer across the storage medium.

9 . The computer program product of claim 8 , further comprising program code to identify media based on the pre-loaded parameters, and select and deliver the identified media from a library to the one or more media accessors.

10 . The computer program product of claim 9 , further comprising program code to update the parameters, including retrieve media parameters from the accessors through the interface.

11 . The computer program product of claim 9 , wherein at least one media accessor is an optical disk drive, and the medium is an optical disc.

12 . The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the one or more characteristic parameters includes type and format of the media.

13 . The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the one or more characteristic parameters includes a mapping of logical block addresses to physical block addresses.

14 . The computer program product of claim 8 , further comprising program code to discover the media parameters from data contained in the medium, and construct a database in the shared location, the database including the discovered media parameters.

15 . A computer system comprising:
a processing unit operatively coupled to memory; a controller in communication with the processing unit to read and write data to a storage medium; one or more media accessors in communication with a data interface for transferring data in support of reading data from the medium and writing data to the medium; the controller to pre-load one or more characteristic parameters of a storage media; and the controller to convey the pre-loaded one or more parameters from a shared location to the one or more media accessors over the interface prior to data transfer across the storage media.

16 . The system of claim 15 , further comprising the controller to identify media based on the pre-loaded parameters, and select and deliver the identified media from an optical media library to the one or more media accessors.

17 . The system of claim 16 , further comprising the controller to update the parameters, including the controller to retrieve media parameters from the accessors through the interface.

18 . The system of claim 15 , further comprising the controller to discover the media parameters from data contained in the media, and construct a database in a shared location, the database including the discovered media parameters.

19 . The system of claim 15 , wherein at least one media accessor is an optical disk drive, and the media is an optical disc.

20 . The system of claim 15 , wherein the one or more characteristic parameters includes a mapping of logical block addresses to physical block addresses.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Smith Daniel F

Classifications

• G06F3/0659 Primary

  Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling · CPC title

• G06F3/0611 Primary

  in relation to response time · CPC title

• G06F2003/0692

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F3/0689

  Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD · CPC title

• G06F3/0683

  Plurality of storage devices · CPC title