Patent · US Active

Optimal use of buffer space by a storage controller which writes retrieved data directly to a memory

US8683126B2 · kind B2 · utility

1Cited by
167References
22Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventor

Key dates

Filing dateJul 30, 2007
Grant dateMar 25, 2014
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 29, 2028

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F13/385
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A storage controller which uses the same buffer to store data elements retrieved from different secondary storage units. In an embodiment, the controller retrieves location descriptors ahead of when data is available for storing in a target memory. Each location descriptor indicates the memory locations at which data received from a secondary storage is to be stored. Only a subset of the location descriptors may be retrieved and stored ahead when processing each request. Due to such retrieval and storing of limited number of location descriptors, the size of a buffer used by the storage controller may be reduced. Due to retrieval of the location descriptors ahead, unneeded buffering of the data elements within the storage controller is avoided, reducing the latency in writing the data into the main memory, thus improving performance.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.