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:
Sep. 29, 2009
Filed:
Jan. 10, 2007
Paul Kaler, Houston, TX (US);
Paul Kaler, Houston, TX (US);
Other;
Abstract
The storage capacity of a solid state disk (SSD) device is increased through data compression. The SSD is coupled to a host computer system and includes a non-volatile storage module (NVSM) and a volatile memory (VM). The SSD is associated with a predetermined compression ratio of n to 1, where n is a value greater than 1. A virtual storage capacity is initially reported to the host computer system that is n times the physical storage capacity of the VM. An overflow buffer is established on the storage media of the NVSM. The currently available virtual capacity of the VM is monitored based on the current compression ratio and the amount of data currently stored therein. Data is stored to the overflow buffer whenever the available virtual capacity falls below that necessary to successfully process a pending storage operation requested by the host computer system. The data stored in the overflow buffer is populated to the VM when the amount of available virtual capacity of the VM can accommodate the data.