JP3100145U - Expandable storage device - Google Patents

Abstract

To provide a storage device capable of expanding a storage capacity. A storage device mainly includes a controller and at least one solid state storage medium. The controller includes a system interface for connecting to at least one external system end, a microprocessor for processing system commands, and a memory interface for exchanging data with the solid state storage media. The controller compresses the original data to be stored transmitted from the external system through a suitable compression / decompression mechanism at a ratio of 1: N into extremely small data, and writes it to the solid state storage medium.
[Selection diagram] Fig. 1

Description

(4) The present invention relates to a storage device capable of expanding a storage capacity. In particular, the present invention relates to a storage device that can expand data storage capacity by compressing data to be stored using a kind of compression technology.

At present, semiconductor memories are becoming increasingly popular as solid state media such as flash memories. Semiconductor memories have advantages such as low power consumption, high reliability, large capacity, and high read / write speed. For example, as shown in Patent Document 1, a semiconductor memory such as a small memory card, a USB mobile disk, or the like is used. Widely used as storage devices.
These storage devices have a built-in solid state storage medium and a controller.
The controller includes a system interface for connecting to an external system end, a microprocessor for processing system commands, and a memory interface for exchanging data with the solid state storage media. Further, the system end is configured to write data to be stored in the solid state storage medium or read necessary data from the solid state storage medium.

The small memory card and the USB mobile disk are applied to different areas.
For example, memory cards are applied to currently popular portable digital products such as digital cameras, portable players, and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), but the standards of memory cards supported by application manufacturers of each product are as follows: Since each is different, various types of memory such as CF (Compact Flash Card), MS (registered trademark Memory Stick Card), SD (registered trademark Secure Digital Card), MMC (registered trademark Multi Media Card), SM (registered trademark Memory Stick Card) Card standards exist.
On the other hand, USB mobile disks can be easily applied to personal computers such as desktop PCs and notebook PCs through a USB interface provided in the main body, and can be used very conveniently.
However, the capacity of the built-in solid state storage media is determined by the production cost and the selling price of both storage devices. The storage capacities of currently popular solid state storage media include 64 MB, 128 MB, 256 MB, and the like, and the cost and selling price are directly proportional to the capacity. That is, the greater the capacity of the solid state storage medium, the higher the price.

However, as the hardware manufacturing technology has reached a certain level, the size and standard of solid-state storage media cannot be expected to greatly develop, and they face the same difficulties as CD-Rs. That is, it is unlikely that the storage capacity will increase significantly in the future.
There is also a technology for minimizing the storage space by nanotechnology and increasing the storage capacity, but this technology is still in its germinating stage and has not yet met the needs for increasing the storage capacity.
On the other hand, in order to solve the shortage of storage capacity, there is also a method of installing a slot at an appropriate position on the main body of a storage medium such as a small memory card and a USB mobile disk, and inserting an external memory card into the slot to expand the memory capacity. is there. However, this method has the disadvantage that an external memory card must be purchased.
Japanese Patent No. 3389186

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned disadvantages of the known structure, and to solve the above-mentioned problem. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a storage device capable of expanding the storage capacity that can be used.

In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, the present invention uses a compression technique to greatly reduce the amount of original data, thereby providing a storage device having an expandable storage capacity. The controller comprises a system interface connected to at least one external system end, a microprocessor for processing system commands, and a memory interface capable of exchanging data with the solid state storage medium. The controller compresses the original data to be stored transmitted from the external system through an appropriate compression / decompression mechanism at a ratio of 1: N into extremely small data, and writes the data to a solid state storage medium. It is.

That is, according to the invention of claim 1, the storage device mainly comprises a controller and at least one solid state storage medium, and the controller has a system interface connected to a system end installed in advance outside, and a processing system command. A microprocessor, a memory interface capable of exchanging data with the solid-state storage medium, a data compression module disposed between the system interface and the memory interface in the controller, and the microprocessor inspired by the microprocessor; The original data transmitted by the system interface is compressed at a ratio of 1: N to be miniaturized data. An extensible storage device storage capacity and recording stored in de-state storage media.

3. The invention of claim 2 wherein the storage device comprises a data decompression module, which is located between the system interface and the memory interface, and which is miniaturized in the solid state storage medium by the microprocessor. 2. The storage device according to claim 1, wherein data is decompressed, restored to original data, and transmitted outside.

The invention of claim 3 wherein the storage device comprises a first data buffer and is electrically connected to the system interface, the microprocessor, the data compression module, and the data decompression module. Alternatively, it is a storage device capable of expanding the storage capacity described in 2.

The invention according to claim 4, wherein a second data buffer is provided in the controller, and is electrically connected to the memory interface, the microprocessor, the data compression module, and the data decompression module. Or a storage device capable of expanding the storage capacity described in 2.

As described above, the present invention uses compression technology to greatly reduce the amount of original data, thereby enabling more data to be stored in the storage space of solid-state storage media, and the purpose of expanding storage capacity. Can be achieved. Further, since the data capacity can be greatly reduced, the transmission or storage speed becomes much faster than when uncompressed, and the read / write speed of the entire storage device can be increased. In addition, since the storage device of the present invention has a compression mechanism, the consumer can achieve the same storage effect as a storage device having a large storage capacity simply by purchasing a storage device having a small storage capacity.

The present invention uses a compression technology to significantly reduce the amount of original data, thereby providing a storage device capable of expanding the storage capacity. The storage device includes a controller and at least one solid state storage medium. The controller includes a system interface for connecting to at least one external system end, a microprocessor for processing system commands, and a memory interface capable of exchanging data with the solid state storage medium. Original data to be stored transmitted from an external system through a compression / decompression mechanism is compressed at a ratio of 1: N into extremely small data, and is written to a solid state storage medium. Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

The general configuration of the storage device 1 is, as shown in FIG. 1, a memory card type widely applied to various portable digital products, a USB mobile disk applied to a PC, or still in a research and development stage. Solid state storage media (ie, flash memory).
The storage device 1 includes a controller 10 and at least one solid state storage medium 20. The controller 10 includes a system interface 101, a microprocessor 102, and a memory interface 103. The system interface 101 is externally provided in advance. Connect to the system end 2 to be installed (applied equipment such as the various portable digital products and PC system).
The memory interface 103 can exchange data with the solid state storage medium 20. The microprocessor 102 in the controller 10 connects to the system interface 101 and the memory interface 103.

Further, as shown in FIG. 1, in the embodiment of the present invention, in order to expand the storage capacity of the solid state storage medium 20, a data compression module 104 exists in the storage device 1, and the data compression module 104 104 and a data decompression module 105 are installed.
The data compression module 104 and the data decompression module 105 are electrically connected to the microprocessor 102, respectively, and are activated by the microprocessor 102.
In addition, a first data buffer 106 and a second data buffer 107 are provided to cope with a difference in transmission speed between the respective interfaces.
The first data buffer 106 is electrically connected to the data compression module 104, the data decompression module 105, and the system interface 101, and the second data buffer 107 is connected to the data compression module 104, the data decompression module 105 and the memory interface 103.
The first and second data buffers 106 and 107 temporarily store data, but the forms of data to be temporarily stored are different.

When external data is to be stored in the solid-state storage medium 20 of the storage medium 1, the system interface 101 receives the original data transmitted by the external system end 2, and then the microprocessor 102 has the features of the present invention. The original data is compressed at an appropriate ratio through a data compression module 104 having a unique design (for example, a ratio such as 1: N. The value of N is determined by the employed compression technique. Compression ratio such as double, quadruple, etc.). The extremely miniaturized data subjected to the compression work is then recorded and stored in the solid state storage medium 20 by the memory interface 103.
As described above, according to the present invention, the compression mechanism enables the solid state storage medium 20 to store data of several times the capacity before compression.

In the design of the embodiment of the present invention, the system interface 101 temporarily stores the original data in the first data buffer 106 before compressing the transmitted original data. Next, the data compression module 104 reads the original data from the first data buffer 106 at a constant transmission rate and compresses the data. Further, the compressed reduced data is transmitted to the second data buffer 107 and temporarily stored. At this time, under the control of the microprocessor 102, the reduced data temporarily stored in the second data buffer 107 is recorded and stored in the solid state storage medium 20 through the memory interface 103.

When the external system end 2 reads stored data from the solid state storage medium 20 of the storage device 1, the external system end 2 uses the data decompression module 105. The reduced data is read out from the solid state storage medium 20 through the memory interface 103 and subjected to decompression processing. Next, the original data whose decompression process has been completed and whose original state has been restored is transmitted to the external system end 2 through the system interface 101.
In operation, before the memory interface 103 transmits and decompresses the reduced data, the second data buffer 107 first temporarily stores the reduced data to be decompressed. The data decompression module 105 reads the miniaturized data to be transmitted from the second data buffer 107 and performs decompression processing. The data decompressed by the data decompression module 105 is sent to the first data buffer 106 for temporary storage. Further, when the microprocessor 102 detects that the first data buffer 106 contains the restored data, the restored data to be transmitted is transmitted through the system interface 101 to the external system end 2. For use.
In the embodiment of the present invention, the data compression module 104 and the data decompression module 105 can be operated by a hard disk circuit or software.

Next, as shown in FIG. 2, in the present embodiment, compression is performed at a ratio of 2: 1. This case will be described.
When the external system end 2 intends to store and record the original data in the storage device 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention, the system interface 101 transmits the original data file 3 (the original data file 1a in FIG. 2). , 2a, 3a, 4a, 5a, 6a, 7a, 8a, etc. Assume that all of the processed original data has the same data amount) to the first data buffer 106. After the detection of the microprocessor 102, the data compression module 104 is operated, and the data compression module 104 sequentially compresses the original data file at a compression ratio of 1/2, and the corresponding miniaturized data file 4 ( The data files are miniaturized data files 1a ', 2a', 3a ', 4a', 5a ', 6a', 7a ', 8a', etc.), and then transmitted to the second data buffer 107 for temporary storage. .
At this time, the microprocessor 102 deletes the stored data in the first data buffer 106 and requests that the system end 2 continuously transmit another original data file to be stored. Further, the miniaturized data file to be stored in the second data buffer 107 is written and stored in the solid state storage medium 20 through the memory interface 103.

In FIG. 2, the original data file 3 occupies eight storage spaces in the solid state storage medium 20, as shown in the uncompressed state diagram at the lower left.
On the other hand, as shown in the compression state diagram at the lower right in FIG. 2, only four data files 4 compressed and miniaturized at a compression ratio of 1/2 are stored in the solid state storage medium 20 ′. It only occupies storage space.
That is, according to the compression technique of the embodiment of the present invention, the function of the controller 10 and the communication bandwidth of the system interface 101 and the memory interface 103 can be fully utilized in the transmission process. Thus, the solid-state storage medium 20 (20 ') of the present invention uses a compression mechanism to change the amount of stored data, so that the data capacity reaches N times the uncompressed data capacity without changing the storage capacity of the hard disk. Can be saved.
That is, even if the storage space is occupied by eight storage spaces in the solid state storage medium 20 shown in FIG. A miniaturized data file can be stored.

FIG. 4 is a schematic circuit diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a difference comparison diagram between a compressed state and an uncompressed state shown in FIG. 1.

Explanation of reference numerals

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Storage device 10 Controller 101 System interface 102 Microprocessor 103 Memory interface 104 Data compression module 105 Data decompression module 106 First data buffer 107 Second data buffer 20 Solid state storage medium 20a Solid state storage medium storing original data file 20b Compression Solid state storage media storing miniaturized data files 2 External system end 3 Original data files (1a to 8a)
4 Compressed miniaturized data file (1a 'to 8a')

Claims (4)

The storage device comprises a controller, at least one solid state storage medium,
The controller includes a system interface connected to a system end previously installed outside, a microprocessor for processing system commands, and a memory interface capable of exchanging data with the solid state storage medium.
A data compression module installed between the system interface and the memory interface is arranged in the controller,
Inspired by the microprocessor, original data transmitted by the system interface is compressed at a ratio of 1: N to miniaturized data, and the miniaturized data is recorded on the solid state storage medium by transmission of the memory interface. A storage device capable of expanding the storage capacity characterized by storing and storing. The storage device comprises a data decompression module, which is disposed between the system interface and the memory interface, and decompresses compressed data for the miniaturized data in the solid state storage medium by the microprocessor. 2. The storage device according to claim 1, wherein the storage device expands the storage capacity by returning the original data to the outside. 3. The storage capacity according to claim 1, wherein the storage device comprises a first data buffer, and is electrically connected to the system interface, the microprocessor, the data compression module, and the data decompression module. Expandable storage device. 3. The storage capacity according to claim 1, further comprising a second data buffer in the controller, and electrically connected to the memory interface, the microprocessor, the data compression module, and the data decompression module. An expandable storage device.

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