Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.p.

Compaq Computer Corporation, Inc.

John Franklin Mertz

Clark Edward Lubbers

Susan Gaye Elkington

Kenneth Hoffman Bates

Bradford Scott Morgan

James S Jackson

James Perry Jackson

In a data storage system a number of records are prefetched from large volume storage devices for transfer to a cache in order to return requested records to a host computer in response to a read request from the host computer. If a previous prefetch is not complete when the read request is received, the number of records in a next prefetch of records is increased by a preset amount. If a previous prefetch is complete, a next prefetch of records is initiated with the same number of records in the prefetch as the previous prefetch. The initiation of prefetch operations is triggered by detection of a sequential read stream in a plurality of read requests from the host computer. When the prefetch size is increased, the preset amount of the increase equals the number of records in the read request from the host computer. After requested records are returned from the cache to the host computer in response to the read request, storage space in the cache used by the returned requested records is released.

Maximizing sequential read streams while minimizing the impact on cache and other applications

Growing community of inventors

Colorado Springs, CO, United States of America

John Franklin Mertz