Quantum Assigned Patent

Quantum Corporation, San Jose, CA, has been assigned a patent (9,734,051) developed by Wideman, Roderick, Shakopee, MN, and Doerner, Don, San Jose, CA, for a “garbage collection and defragmentation for solid state drives, (SSD) and shingled magnetic recording, (SMR) drives.“

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: “Example apparatus and methods provide improved reclamation, garbage collection, (GC) and defragmentation, (defrag) for data storage devices including solid state drives, (SSD) or shingled magnetic recording, SMR) drives. An erasure code, (EC) layer that facilitates logically or physically erasing data from the SSD or SMR as a comprehensive GC or defrag is added to the SSD or SMR. Erased data may be selectively recreated from the EC layer as needed. Pre-planned EC write zones may be established to further optimize GC and defrag. Recreated data may be written to selected locations to further optimize SSD and SMR performance. Erasure code data may be distributed to co-operating devices to further improve GC or defrag. Example apparatus and methods may also facilitate writing data to an SMR drive using tape or VTL applications or processes and providing a pseudo virtual tape library on the SMR drive.“

The patent application was filed on February 16, 2015 (14/622,976).