System and methods for accelerated data storage and retrieval

• US 20060195601A1
• Filed: 04/08/2006
• Published: 08/31/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: James J. Fallon
• Original Assignee: James J. Fallon
• Inventors: Fallon, James J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,275,897 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0613 in relation to throughput
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0638 Organizing or formatting or addressing of data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/064 Management of blocks
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0655 Vertical data movement, i.e. input-output transfer; data movement between one or more hosts and one or more storage devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0674 Disk device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0676 Magnetic disk device
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 20/10 Digital recording or reproducing
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2020/00079 the compression ratio or quality level being adapted to circumstances, e.g. to the available recording space
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 2020/10759 content data
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 7/30 Compression speech analysis-synthesis for redundancy reduction G10L19/00; for image communication H04N; Expansion; Suppression of unnecessary data, e.g. redundancy reduction
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/115 Selection of the code volume for a coding unit prior to coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/15 by monitoring actual compressed data size at the memory before deciding storage at the transmission buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/152 by measuring the fullness of the transmission buffer
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/176 the region being a block, e.g. a macroblock
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/231 Content storage operation, e.g. caching movies for short term storage, replicating data over plural servers, prioritizing data for deletion
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/232 Content retrieval operation locally within server, e.g. reading video streams from disk arrays storage management G06F3/0604; details of querying and searching of video data from a database G06F16/739
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42661 for reading from or writing on a magnetic storage medium, e.g. hard disk drive
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4325 : by playing back content from the storage medium reproduction of recorded television signals H04N5/76; reproduction of recorded television signals H04N9/79
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4334 : Recording operations recording of a television signal H04N5/76; arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/27
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/781 : on disks or drums
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/843 : on film
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/85 : on discs or drums
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/907 : using static stores, e.g. storage tubes or semiconductor memories H04N5/91 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8042 : involving data reduction
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8227 : the additional signal being at least another television signal

Abstract

Systems and methods for providing accelerated data storage and retrieval utilizing lossless and/or lossy data compression and decompression. A data storage accelerator includes one or a plurality of high speed data compression encoders that are configured to simultaneously or sequentially losslessly or lossy compress data at a rate equivalent to or faster than the transmission rate of an input data stream. The compressed data is subsequently stored in a target memory or other storage device whose input data storage bandwidth is lower than the original input data stream bandwidth. Similarly, a data retrieval accelerator includes one or a plurality of high speed data decompression decoders that are configured to simultaneously or sequentially losslessly or lossy decompress data at a rate equivalent to or faster than the input data stream from the target memory or storage device. The decompressed data is then output at rate data that is greater than the output rate from the target memory or data storage device. The data storage and retrieval accelerator method and system may employed: in a disk storage adapter to reduce the time required to store and retrieve data from computer to disk; in conjunction with random access memory to reduce the time required to store and retrieve data from random access memory; in a display controller to reduce the time required to send display data to the display controller or processor; and/or in an input/output controller to reduce the time required to store, retrieve, or transmit data.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a data stream, having a plurality of data blocks, over an input having a first bandwidth;

compressing, in at least real-time, said plurality of data blocks using one or more of a plurality of encoders to provide a compressed data stream, wherein said compressed data stream includes data compression type descriptors indicative of the type of compression utilized for each one of said plurality of data block that was compressed;

transmitting said compressed data stream over an output having a second bandwidth, wherein said first bandwidth is substantially greater than said second bandwidth and said transmitting said compressed data stream effectively increases said second bandwidth; and

wherein said compressing and said transmitting of said compressed data stream over said output occurs faster than a transmission of said data stream in uncompressed form over said output.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said compressing is lossy.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said compressing is lossless.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of said data compression type descriptors is indicative of compressing utilizing parallel encoders.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of said data compression type descriptors is indicative of compressing utilizing identical parallel encoders.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of said data compression type descriptor is indicative of compressing utilizing sequential encoders.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of said data compression type descriptors is indicative of using a plurality of encoders.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of said data compression type descriptors is indicative of using a single encoder.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether or not said compressing is lossy or lossless.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a first parameter indicative of the type of compression to be applied to at least one of said plurality of data blocks.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a first parameter indicative of the type of compression to be applied to at least one of said plurality of data blocks; and

selecting at least one encoder for said compression based on said first parameter.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a parameter indicative of an amount of information loss that is permissible for said compression.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein said parameter parameters is located within a header of said data.

14. A method comprising:

receiving a data stream, having a plurality of data blocks, over an input having a first bandwidth;

compressing, in at least real-time, said plurality of data blocks using one or more of a plurality of encoders to provide a compressed data stream, wherein said compressed data stream includes data compression type descriptors indicative of the type of compression utilized for each one of said plurality of data block that was compressed; and

transmitting said compressed data stream over an output having a second bandwidth, wherein said first bandwidth is substantially greater than said second bandwidth and said transmitting said compressed data stream effectively increases said second bandwidth;

wherein said compressing and said transmitting of said compressed data stream over said output occurs faster than a transmission of said data stream in uncompressed form over said output; and

decompressing said data stream based on said data compression type descriptors.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said compressing is lossy.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein said compressing is lossless.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein at least one of said data compression type descriptors is indicative of compressing utilizing parallel encoders.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein at least one of said data compression type descriptors is indicative of compressing utilizing identical parallel encoders.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein at least one of said data compression type descriptor is indicative of compressing utilizing sequential encoders.

20. The method of claim 14, wherein at least one of said data compression type descriptors is indicative of using a plurality of encoders.