HGST (WD) Assigned Three Patents

Encryption methods for patterned media watermarking

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, has been assigned a patent (8,369,562) developed by Thomas Robert Albrecht, Zvonimir Z. Bandic, San Jose, CA, and Jorge Campello de Souza, Cupertino, CA, for "encryption methods for patterned media watermarking."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Watermarks for patterned magnetic media. The watermarks are used to demonstrate the unauthorized replication of a patterned magnetic media. The watermarks include a dibit, a pattern in an open region, shifting of data, shifting of a sync mark and large length scale perturbations. Also described are methods to determine if a watermark appears on a patterned media."

The patent application was filed on March 30, 2007 (11/731,454).

Improving HDD efficiency

HGST Netherlands, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, has been assigned a patent (8,386,704) developed by David Robison Hall, Rochester, MN, for "techniques for improving HDD efficiency."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A host OS (OS) can function as a task under a disk drive OS. The host OS and the disk drive OS can be run on a single processor. The processor is able to maintain the real-time response characteristics of a disk drive controller. A shared memory subsystem can be accessed by both OSs. A disk drive storage device can access and respond to metadata about an underlying file system maintained by a host OS (OS) to optimize data transfers between the disk drive and the host OS. The disk drive can identify the nature of R/W accesses, allowing it to prioritize and performance optimize the accesses. The disk drive can perform these functions without any changes to the block interface."

The patent application was filed on Oct. 25, 2006 (11/552,888).

Storage device with data transformation capability

HGST Netherlands, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, has been assigned a patent (8,363,837) developed by Larry Lynn Williams, Los Altos, CA, for a "storage device with data transformation capability."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "In a preferred embodiment a method of operating an intelligent disk drive is described which includes compression and/or encryption capability at the file level. The intelligent disk drive includes means for executing distributed computing tasks including a CPU and associated memory. The communication interface with the host computer or other device on the communication bus is modified to allow the device to send executable code for a task to the drive and to allow the drive to communicate the results and status information about the task to the host device. In a preferred embodiment the disk drive has a task control program, task program code, task data and status information for the distributed task. The task control program implements the basic task management functions of storing the task program, reporting results and saving progress information to allow the task to be interrupted by other drive functions."

The patent application was filed on Feb. 28, 2005 (11/069,312).