Abstract: In a ultra high density, multiple-disk drive, track switches within a cylinder of tracks as well as track switches to tracks on other cylinders both require a movement of the head stack actuator. Track switching latency in such a disk drive is reduced by overlapping pre-movement portions of the track switching process with the data transfer operation of the currently active recording head. In addition, post-movement portions of the track switching process are overlapped with the movement of the heads so that the next selected read/write head may begin a data transfer operation immediately upon arrival at the next track. Further, the pre-movement and post-movement portions of the track-switch process may be overlapped with low displacement movement of the read/write heads relative to the currently active track or the next track.

Abstract: A method and apparatus are provided for implementing automatic cache variable update. A cache variable update hardware maintains a plurality of variables indicative of a data segment in the cache. The plurality of variables include a segment state variable, a segment starting address variable, a segment length variable and a segment offset variable. The cache variable update hardware monitors the cache to identify a selection of a segment for a data transfer to and from the cache and to identify data transfers. The plurality of variables are initialized responsive to an identified cache search. The segment length variable is incremented responsive to a data block written to the cache. The segment state variable is modified responsive to a data transfer complete.