Disk drive with cache employing host pointer jumps during skip-ahead or semi-repeating accesses

摘要

A method of managing commands is provided for a disk drive having an intelligent interface for communicating with a host. The drive also has a magnetic disk, host side programs, disk side programs, and a cache wherein the cache is divisible into a number of segments. The cache employs a cache control structure including a cache entry table, a buffer counter, a block count, a host pointer and a disk pointer. The drive receives a first command and a second command with a cache access type. The method of managing commands comprises the steps of: processing the first command to assign the first command to a cache segment having a prefetch area; determining the cache access type of the second command; and if the cache access type of the second command is a skip ahead sequential access then decrementing the buffer counter and incrementing the host pointer to skip leading nonrequested data in the prefetch area for the first command.