IBM Assigned Patent

IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, has been assigned a patent (8,244,974) developed by five co-inventors for a "method and system for equalizing usage of storage media."

The co-inventors are Susann Marie Keohane, Gerald Francis McBrearty, Austin, TX, Shawn Patrick Mullen, Buda, TX, Jessica Murillo, Hutto, TX, and Johnny Meng-Han Shieh, Austin, TX.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method is presented for using a hard disk drive which contains a non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) and a computer-usable disk medium. A usage value is maintained for the number of accesses to the computer-usable disk medium, and the usage value is stored within the NVRAM. In a system that is connected to multiple hard disk drives, the usage values for the hard disk drives can be compared to determine a youngest disk drive or a lowest amount of usage amongst the multiple hard disk drives. When data needs to be mirrored or backed-up to one of the hard disk drives, it can be copied to the youngest or least-used hard disk drive. If an operating system installation needs to be performed, the operating system files can be stored on the youngest or least-used hard disk drive."

The patent application was filed on Dec. 10, 2003 (10/732,625).