Abstract: A lender provides a loan policy containing rules that relate item attributes and/or borrower characteristics to loan parameters such as interest rate and loan term. An inventory of items normally purchased is searched using an installment payment amount as a search criterion by combining item attributes and loan rules associated with loan parameters to identify items having installment payments that conform to the loan policy and satisfy payment search criteria.

Abstract: A data storage device mirrors data on a data storage medium. The multiple instances of data are synchronized in order to optimize performance of the reading and writing, and the integrity of the data. Preferably, a data storage device is allowed to defer writing multiple copies of data until a more advantageous time.

Abstract: A unique system and method for ordering commands may reduce disc access latency while giving preference to pending commands. The method and system involves giving preference to pending commands in a set of priority queues. The method and system involve identifying a pending command and processing other non-pending commands in route to the pending command if performance will not be penalized in doing so. The method and system include a list of command node references referring to a list of sorted command nodes that are to be scheduled for processing.