Special-Purpose Interface for Fast Writing on a Hard Disk

A special-purpose interface circuit for a computer hard-disk drive (HDD) enables rapid writing of image data from a scientific instrument to sequential sectors on the hard disk. The design of this interface exploits the fact that most of the hardware and software components typically used to control the flow of data to the HDD of a general-purpose personal computer (PC) are not needed in a special-purpose instrument application; as a result, the size, weight, and power consumption of the data-storage portion of the instrument can be made less than they would be if a general-purpose interface were used. This interface can be connected directly to any of a variety of commercially available HDDs.