Patents by Inventor Nicholas John Granger-Brown

Nicholas John Granger-Brown has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 8456976
    Abstract: There is disclosed herein a method and apparatus for centering a disk on a spindle, a spinstand and a method of testing with a spinstand. The method of centering includes attaching the disk to the spindle with a stick-slip clamp. A vector is determined by which the centre of the disk is displaced from the spindle axis and the vector is aligned with a movably mounted piezo actuator. A voltage is then applied to the piezo actuator to cause the piezo actuator to apply an impulse to the edge of the disk to cause the disk to slip in the clamp and reduce the displacement of the disk.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 4, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 4, 2013
    Assignee: Xyratex Technology Limited
    Inventors: Nicholas John Granger-Brown, Martin Siering
  • Publication number: 20120182849
    Abstract: There is disclosed herein a method and apparatus for centring a disk on a spindle, a spinstand and a method of testing with a spinstand. The method of centring includes attaching the disk to the spindle with a stick-slip clamp. A vector is determined by which the centre of the disk is displaced from the spindle axis and the vector is aligned with a movably mounted piezo actuator. A voltage is then applied to the piezo actuator to cause the piezo actuator to apply an impulse to the edge of the disk to cause the disk to slip in the clamp and reduce the displacement of the disk.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 4, 2012
    Publication date: July 19, 2012
    Applicant: Xyratex Technology Limited
    Inventors: Nicholas John Granger-Brown, Martin Siering
  • Patent number: 7644192
    Abstract: In order to investigate the behavior of a data storage system, the time differences between commands from an analysis device and the completion of the operations defined by those commands are analyzed. The method may use a factorial parameter table definition representing common threads of I/O events in a patterned, cyclic nature, using a host computer as the host application emulator and data logger. The workload definition is provided either from hypothetical proposed thread parameters, or by statistical and common factorial analysis of real application I/O traffic analysis, or a combination of both. The generated workloads can be run while measuring the I/O event completion timings and event queuing characteristics, facilitating engineering interpretation of results for the purpose of analyzing the effects of workload and system architectural design factors, and optimization or evaluation of total system configurations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 25, 2006
    Date of Patent: January 5, 2010
    Assignee: Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V
    Inventors: Martin Clive Dudley, Nicholas John Granger-Brown, Matthew Philip Latter, Christopher Edward Robert Smart