Preemptable idle time activities for constant data delivery by determining whether initiating a host command will conflict with an idle time activity being executed

摘要

A method and apparatus for performing preemptable calibration and housekeeping functions during idle time between commands thereby maximizing data throughput. The idle time activities are scheduled on an infrequent time scale. A single seek is used to get to a measurement location. Once the read/write head is positioned at the measurement location, it stays there for a fairly long time in order to make many measurements. If a new host command arrives, the test is aborted and the host command is serviced. The new command is begun without performing any clean-up activity and may or may not record the point at which the idle time activity was abandoned and idle time activity is reinitiated after the new command is completed. Results from the idle time activity is committed to the disk or RAM only after completion of an idle time activity, and thereafter another idle time activity is begun. Thus, constant data delivery is provided by the preempting of the idle time activity which thereby maximizes data throughput.