Inginerii companiei Apple lucreaza tot timpul la ceva nou iar de aceasta data compania din Cupertino intentioneaza sa “revolutioneze” industria hard disk-urilor prin lansarea unui produs care combina componentele unui SSD si cele ale unui hard disk cu platane. O cerere de inregistrare a unui brevet de inventie pentru compania Apple ne prezinta un dispozitiv hybrid care ar avea incluse atat componeltele hard disk-urilor cat si componentele interne ale SSD-urilor, totul in ideea de a mentine datele in siguranta si de a oferi perormante ridicate pentru utilizatori.
On September 29, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a next generation Hybrid Drive that includes both a hard drive and Flash. Intel will be pushing their Smart Response hybrid drive systems for consumer systems in 2012 and Apple’s patent would indicate that they intend to have their own solution for future hardware. Uniquely Apple’s twist to this drive is that it will handle different types of storage media based on an environmental state of the hybrid drive. If the drive undergoes temperature, vibration or acceleration variances that could cause the hard drive to temporarily fail, the system would save the volatile data to the Flash drive.
Practic Apple descrie un hard disk care ar functiona in baza sistemului care tine in functiune matricile raid. Dispozitivul hybrid ar avea in el componentele unui hard disk si componentele unui SSD insa informatiile ar fi in principal stocate pe platanele hard disk-ului dar ele ar putea fi transferate pe SSD in cazul unor socuri sau in eventualitatea in care ar exista o amenitare cu privire la integritatea datelor. Transferul pe mediul de stocare flash ar asigura salvarea datelor dar ar oferi desigur si acces mult mai rapid la ele, asta pana cand componentele hard disk-ului ar fi inlocuite.
Ideea celor de la Apple este interesanta si foarte foarte utila dar problema cea mai mare ar fi cu siguranta pretul ridicat al dezvoltarii unui asemenea produs. Ar fi interesant sa vedem sistemul disponibil in viitoarele unitati de stocare din MacBook-uri si ele cu siguranta ar oferi companiei Apple un avantaj in fata competitorilor. Pe piata exista deja o cateva modele de hard disk-uri asemanatoare asa ca Apple ar trebui sa vina cu un produs inedit pentru a cuceri o piata in dezvoltare.
Apple’s invention generally relates to a hybrid storage device that includes the following: a hard-disk drive (HDD), a flash memory, an interface circuit, and control logic. This control logic receives a request, via the interface circuit, from an external device to write a block of data to the hybrid storage device, where the request includes a logical address for the block of data in a first portion of an address space which maps to the HDD. In response to the request, the control logic writes the block of data to the HDD. Furthermore, if there is a change in environmental state information of the hybrid storage device during the write operation, the control logic writes at least a portion of the block of data to a logical address for the block of data in a second portion of the address space which maps to the flash memory. Note that the address space may be common to the external device and the hybrid storage device.
This post was last modified on sept. 30, 2011, 12:01 PM 12:01