Abstract: A disk drive comprising a head actuated over a disk, and control circuitry operable to spin the disk at a first spin rate. The control circuitry is further operable to reduce the spin rate of the disk from the first spin rate to a second spin rate, wherein the second spin rate is based on a spin-up parameter associated with spinning up the disk from the second spin rate to the first spin rate. For example, the spin-up parameter may comprise one or more of a spin-up time limit, power setting, and ambient temperature.

Abstract: A disk drive is disclosed comprising a disk and a head actuated over the disk. The disk comprises a plurality of tracks, wherein each track comprises a plurality of data sectors including a parity sector, the parity sector comprising at least a P0 parity codeword and a P1 parity codeword. A plurality of data sectors are read from the disk (including the parity sector) to generate a plurality of data codewords CW0-CWn. The data sectors are decoded using an error correction code (ECC) decoder. When a single data codeword in CW0-CWn is unrecoverable using the ECC decoder, the single data codeword is recovered using the P0 parity codeword. When two data codewords in CW0-CWn are unrecoverable using the ECC decoder, the two data codewords are recovered using the P0 and P1 parity codewords.

Abstract: A disk drive is disclosed having a disk, a head actuated over the disk, a buffer memory for storing control routine op codes and control routine data, and a microprocessor for receiving the control routine op codes and control routine data. Control circuitry within the disk drive services an access request generated by the microprocessor by accessing the buffer memory, and monitors at least one interrupt. If the interrupt occurs while servicing the access request, the control circuitry enables the microprocessor to execute an interrupt service routine corresponding to the interrupt. Enabling the microprocessor to execute the interrupt service routine rather than wait for the access request reduces the latency in servicing the interrupt.

Abstract: A write command is received from a host computer at a disk drive having a disk. The write command is associated with a data block and a logical block address of the data block, and a logical sector size of the data block is smaller than a physical sector size of a physical sector on the disk associated with the logical block address. The data block is written to a staging sector located in non-volatile media of the disk drive based at least in part on the logical sector size being smaller than the physical sector size. A write response is sent to the host computer, the write response indicating that the write command has been completed. After sending the write response to the host computer, the data block is written to the physical sector on the disk.