The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 08, 2002
Filed:
Jan. 26, 1999
Deniz Teoman, San Mateo, CA (US);
John M. Neil, San Francisco, CA (US);
Motive Power, Inc., San Mateo, CA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and method for caching data in a storage device of a computer system. A relatively high-speed, intermediate-volume storage device is operated as a user-configurable cache. Requests to access a mass storage device such as a disk or tape are intercepted by a device driver that compares the access request against a directory of the contents of the user-configurable cache. If the user-configurable cache contains the data sought to be accessed, the access request is carried out in the user-configurable cache instead of being forwarded to the device driver for the target mass storage device. Because the user-cache is implemented using memory having a dramatically shorter access time than most mechanical mass storage devices, the access request is fulfilled much more quickly than if the originally intended mass storage device was accessed. Data is preloaded and responsively cached in the user-configurable cache memory based on user preferences.