786 results about "Tape drive" patented technology

A plurality of SMP modules and an IOP module communicate storage traffic via respective corresponding I/O controllers coupled to respective physical ports of a switch fabric by addressing cells to physical port addresses corresponding to the physical ports. One of the SMPs executes initiator software to partially manage the storage traffic and the IOP executes target software to partially manage the storage traffic. Storage controllers are coupled to the IOP, enabling communication with storage devices, such as disk drives, tape drives, and/or networks of same. Respective network identification registers are included in each of the I/O controller corresponding to the SMP executing the initiator software and the I/O controller corresponding to the IOP. Transport of the storage traffic in accordance with a particular VLAN is enabled by writing a same particular value into each of the network identification registers.

A computer graphics display method and system for controlling data visualization in at least one external dimension is provided which allows better querying and navigation of data in external dimension space. A data visualization is displayed in a first display window. A summary window provides summary information on data for the data visualization across one or more external dimensions. First and second controllers are displayed for controlling the variation of the data visualization in respective first and second external dimensions. A user queries the data visualization in the first and second external dimensions by selecting a point in the summary window. A user navigates through the data visualization in the first and second external dimensions by defining a path in the summary window. Grid points are also displayed in the summary window to facilitate data queries and navigation based on actual data points. The first and second controllers can be first and second sliders, such as, slide buttons, dials, or any other type of input. An animation control panel, including tape-drive controls, a path control, and a speed control, controls an animation of the data visualization over a selected navigation path through external dimension space.

In one embodiment, a tape drive system includes a magnetic head having a servo sensor for sensing a defined servo track of a magnetic tape and configured to read servo pulses from servo bursts of the servo track while the magnetic tape is moving past the magnetic head with the servo bursts representing an encoded data symbol, an analog-to-digital converter configured to provide a sequence of samples of the readback servo signal, a digital correlator configured to compute a correlation signal between the sequence and a reference waveform, a timing reference module configured to provide a reference timing model having interpolation instants to the digital correlator, a correlation interpolator configured to interpolate the correlation signal at the interpolation instants and compute a longitudinal position (LPOS) detection metric, and an LPOS detector configured to decode the encoded data symbol of the servo bursts using the computed LPOS detection metric.

In one embodiment, a method includes loading a tape cartridge into at least one tape drive installed in an automated tape library, where a tape of the tape cartridge has at least two partitions; writing plurality of data blocks on a first of the partitions; and writing an index on a second of the partitions, wherein the index includes information about at least one of files and the blocks on the first partition

A tape transport servo system and method that do not make use of tachometers and/or encoders to derive tape velocity and position are provided. The tape transport servo system and method derive velocity and position of the tape from a primary and direct manner and also a secondary or alternative manner, especially when the primary or direct manner cannot be used. The tape transport servo system and method control a tape drive and moves a tape between one reel driven by one motor to another reel driven by another motor. The tape is read by a recording head composed of data readers, data writers and a dedicated set of servo read elements. A position and a velocity of the tape are determined from a primary velocity source when the tape is being read by the head. The position and the velocity of the tape are determined from a secondary velocity source when the tape is not being read by the head. The velocity of the tape is compared to a desired programmed reference velocity for the tape. The velocity of the tape is driven to the desired programmed reference velocity if the velocity is not equal to the desired velocity. The velocity of the tape is controlled by regulating the velocity and the driving currents of the motors. The tape transport servo system comprises a digital signal processor and a servo motor control system. The servo motor control system comprises a servo logic system, sensors, PWM motor drivers, power amplifiers, DACs, counters, computation systems, and a timing-based servo pattern monitoring system.

A fine lateral head positioner for a tape drive includes a frame mounted to a base of a tape transport. A tape head slides laterally along a head guide. A guide beam actuated by a fine position actuator applies limited transverse adjustments to the tape head relative to a tape transport path via a cam and cam-follower arrangement. A coarse positioner between the frame and the base provides coarse position adjustment of the tape head laterally among multiple sets of parallel tracks defined along a longitudinal direction of a magnetic tape moving along the tape transport path, and the guide beam provides fine position adjustment of the tape head enabling it to follow in real time a particular set of parallel tracks of the tape during each data writing or reading operation.

A tape drive emulator (30) is between a host computer (40) and a removable disk drive (22) and appears to the host computer 40 as a sequential storage system, e.g., a tape drive. However, the tape drive emulator (30) processes the data obtained from or applied to host computer 40 so that the data can be communicated to removable disk drive 22 in a manner compatible with a conventional removable disk drive. Yet in so doing, tape drive emulator 30 imposes on the data (1) an data organization, imperceptible to disk drive 22, for rendering the data expressable and locatable in a tape drive format, and (2) an additional degree of error correction that provides enhanced data integrity necessary for data backup/restore operations.

Apparatus for producing low ignition propensity (“LIP”) smoking articles provides independent control of the belt drive transport speed and the cutting head rotational speed in dependence on the relative position of the cutting head blades to the position of the continuous tobacco column on the tape drive, by detecting the presence of synchronizing marks disposed on the outer surface of the tobacco column LIP paper wrapper, thereby controlling cutting of the continuous column to provide registration of the LIP paper's LP bands to their designated location within the finished article's tobacco column.

A self-destruction document or e-mail massaging system is provided that automatically destroys documents or e-mail messages at a predetermined time by attaching a “virus” to the document or e-mail message. A virus in the form of a Trojan horse is attached to file (such as an e-mail message or document) when it is created. The virus contains a portion of executable code or an executable program which instructs the computer to overwrite and/or delete the file to which the virus is attached at a desired time. Since the virus is attached to the file, it will travel with the file even when the file is copied, forwarded, or saved to disks or tape drives.

A data protection and storage system includes an array of disk drives for data storage. Data is received for storage on the disk drive via an interface that is configured to emulate a tape drive interface. A virtual tape data structure is created and stored on the disk drives. The allocated capacity of the virtual tape is dynamically and transparently alterable in response to data storage demand within the virtual tape.

A fully synchronous longitudinal position (LPOS) detection system is provided for improving the reliability of servo channels in tape systems. The system is based on the interpolation of the servo channel output signal, which is sampled by an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) at a fixed sampling rate, using a clock at a nominal frequency, so that interpolated signal samples are obtained at a predetermined fixed rate, independent of tape velocity. This predetermined fixed rate is defined in terms of samples per unit of length, as opposed to samples per unit of time, which is the measure of the ADC sampling rate. The resolution with which the servo channel signal is obtained at the interpolator output is thus determined by the step interpolation distance.

A system and method of operating a storage system is provided. The storage system includes a tape cartridge having a magnetic tape medium and a tape drive for reading and writing data to the magnetic tape medium of the tape cartridge. Performance data associated with specific operating loci (e.g., bands, directions, tracks, segments, etc.) of the tape drive and tape medium are collected, analyzed, and stored, allowing for analysis and detection of trends over time. In one example, tape usage events are monitored and when they cross a threshold the system may remove particular tapes in a preventative maintenance approach to reduce system outage. Performance data is collected and analyzed with a portion of the performance data being saved to emulated medium auxiliary memory (EMAM) on the magnetic tape, and a portion of the of the performance data saved in non-volatile storage in the drive.

A tape drive assembly includes a tape drive adapted to receive a tape cartridge and control electronics. The control electronics are adapted to identify whether the tape cartridge comprises a disaster recovery tape, identify a disaster recovery request, and configure the tape drive as a bootable device in response to identifying the disaster recovery request. A method for restoring a computer having a tape drive includes autonomously determining whether a tape cartridge inserted into the tape drive comprises a disaster recovery tape; identifying a disaster recovery request; and configuring the tape drive to emulate a bootable device in response to identifying the disaster recovery request.

A system comprises a head having a tape bearing surface and an array of transducers in the tape bearing surface, the transducers being selected from a group consisting of readers, writers and servo readers, a length of the array being defined between outer transducers thereof, the head having a feature that induces formation of a larger spacing between a tape and portions of the tape bearing surface positioned laterally to the array in a direction about perpendicular to a direction of tape travel thereacross than between the tape and a contiguous portion of the tape bearing surface wherein the feature has a continuous length that is at least as long as the plurality of transducers, wherein the feature has a continuous length that is at least as long as the plurality of transducers.

A data backup apparatus for a computer data system includes a unit housing in a standard form factor, within which is provided one or more disk drives and a removable media drive as well as an interface. In one embodiment, the removal media is magnetic tape cartridges that are selectively insertable and removable to and from a tape drive as the removable media drive. In embodiments with a single hard drive, the drive is divided into two partitions, a first partition with active data interchange with the computer data system and a second partition for data duplication, or mirroring. Data backup operations are performed by reading the duplicate or mirrored data from the second partition. Multiple disk systems are described, as well as systems utilizing optical removable media and solid state or memory cartridge removable media. A restore function is provided which operates independently of the host computer to which the device is connected to restore backed-up data regardless of the operational condition of the host computer.

Servo control methods and apparatus for a tape drive. A read/write head reads and writes data on magnetic tape with at least one servo track providing transverse position information. At least two servo readers arranged for reading a servo track associated with the read/write head operate concurrently to generate servo read signals. A position estimator processes each servo read signal to generate a series of position values corresponding to respective time instants indicative of their transverse positions. A servo controller calculates a skew value indicative of tape skew relative to the read/write head and a tension variation value indicative of variation of tape tension. The servo controller is adapted to account for cross-coupling between tape skew and tension variation.

A method for managing archived data includes creating a plurality of images of storage devices of computing systems and for, different users, each image being associated with a restore point of a particular storage device; storing the images for the different users in different storage locations, the storage locations being controlled by a single backup server and belonging to storage pools. Multiple locations of one user are stored in different pools on different storage devices. The method also involves moving contents of locations of one user from one pool to another in predefined direction, simultaneously with reorganizing images within the locations. Each image is a backup of one user's data. At least some of one location's content is frozen so that it is never moved from one pool to another. The storage devices of locations of different pools differ from each other by type, such that storage devices in a first pool are hard disk drives, storage devices in the next pool are SAN, or an NAS, and a storage device in the next pool is a network disk drive accessible through a network and a storage device in the next pool is a magnetic tape drive.

A tape cartridge is provided with reliable reel lock and motor/reel coupling mechanisms whose functions are both accomplished during a single motion of the cartridge relative to the drive motor. The motor/reel coupling includes a circular set of gear teeth on the bottom of the tape reel which meshes with a complementary set of gear teeth on a motor coupling rotated by the motor when the cartridge is loaded into the tape drive and the cartridge and motor are moved towards each other. An engagement force to maintain the coupling is provided by an engagement spring in the cartridge which biases the reel towards the motor. Reel locking is accomplished by providing a second circular set of gear teeth on a top side of the tape reel which meshes with a complementary set of gear teeth provided on a slidably mounted locking bracket inside the tape cartridge. A lock spring normally biases the locking bracket towards the top of the tape reel, thus locking the reel when the cartridge is not engaged with the motor. When the cartridge and the drive motor are moved towards each other, the motor coupling engages the bottom of the tape reel, and a projection on the motor coupling extends into the tape cartridge to slide the locking bracket out of engagement with the teeth on the top of the tape reel, thereby unlocking the reel. Thus, reel unlocking and motor/reel coupling are accomplished with a single motion by reliable mechanisms.

A method and system for connecting a host to a tape drive for accessing a tape cartridge in a data storage system having a tape library provided with cartridges and tape drives includes the host requesting a desired cartridge to access. In response to the request, a proxy agent queries the library to determine which of the tape drives are available to receive the desired cartridge. The proxy agent then selects a tape drive from the available tape drives to receive the desired cartridge. The desired cartridge is then mounted into the selected tape drive. An access controller then connects a virtual tape drive associated with the host to the selected tape drive to provide the host with access to the desired cartridge. The selected tape drive may be selected as a function of its location with respect to the storage location of the desired cartridge. While the host computer is accessing the desired cartridge, the access controller may simultaneously connect another virtual tape drive associated with a second host to another tape drive to provide the second host with access to a different cartridge.