System and apparatus for compressing and decompressing data stored to a portable data storage device

• US 20030217206A1
• Filed: 05/16/2002
• Published: 11/20/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Trek 2000 International Limited (Trek Technology Singapore PTE Limited)
• Original Assignee: Trek 2000 International Limited (Trek Technology Singapore PTE Limited)
• Inventors: Poo, Teng Pin
• Granted Patent: US 7,082,483 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 710/68
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0607 by facilitating the process of upgrading existing storage systems, e.g. for improving compatibility between host and storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0661 Format or protocol conversion arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0679 Non-volatile semiconductor memory device, e.g. flash memory, one time programmable memory [OTP]
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/00007 Time or data compression or expansion audio compression based on psychoacoustics G10L19/00; data processing for reproducing audio data at different playback speeds G10L21/04; video compression H04N19/00; data compression per se H03M7/30

Abstract

A portable memory device is provided that is capable of easy connection to a personal computer via a universal serial bus (USB) port, IEEE 1394 (i.e., firewire) or similar port. Included in the portable memory device is a compression/decompression engine capable of compressing and decompressing data. Data residing on a personal computer or other host platform is compressed by the engine and saved to the memory of the portable memory device. Compressed data is retrieved and decompressed by the engine and transmitted to the personal computer for use by the user. Embodiments of the present invention thus provide a highly convenient system and apparatus for users to access and save larger quantities of data to a relatively small device.

Claims

7. A method of compressing data, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) directly connecting a portable data storage device to the communication port of a host platform via a universal serial bus connector;

(b) executing a data compression engine residing on the portable storage device;

(c) compressing data provided by host; and

(e) saving the compressed data to the memory of the portable device.

1. An apparatus comprising:

a unitary portable data storage device having a universal serial bus (USB) connector adapted to the storage device, the device capable of being directly connected to a computer via the connector, the storage device including;

a flash memory having a first storage capacity; and

a data compression engine,

the data compression engine capable of compressing data for storage in the flash memory so that the capacity of the flash memory exceeds the first storage capacity.

2. The portable data storage device as in claim 1, further comprising a data decompression engine capable of decompressing data stored to the memory of the portable device.

3. The portable device as in claim 1 wherein the user thereof is not aware that the data is being compressed.

4. The portable device as in claim 1 wherein the data is compressed to 50 percent of its original size.

5. The portable device as in claim 1 wherein the capacity of the memory is increased by 100%.

6. The portable device as in claim 1 wherein the user thereof can enable and disable the compression engine.

8. The method as in claim 7 wherein the user thereof is not aware that the data is being compressed.

9. The method as in claim 7 wherein the compressing step comprises compressing the data to 50 percent of its original size.

10. The method as in claim 7 further comprising the step of increasing the capacity of the memory by 100%.

11. The method as in claim 7 wherein the user thereof can enable and disable the compression engine.

11-1. The method as in claim 10 wherein the user thereof can enable and disable the compression engine.

12. A method of decompressing data saved to the memory of the portable memory device, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) connecting the portable data storage device directly to a communication port of the personal computer via a universal serial bus (USB);

(b) executing a data compression/decompression engine residing on the portable storage device; and

(c) retrieving the compressed data from the memory of the portable data storage device;

(d) decompressing the data; and

(e) transmitting the data to the host platform.