JPH04364547A - Information storage system of auxiliary storage device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To increase the speed of a writing/reading process by the information storage system of the auxiliary storage device. CONSTITUTION:An information compressing means 61a, a writing means 61b, a nonuse informing means 61c, a reading means 61d, and an expanding means 61e are provided in the auxiliary storage device 60. Further, a file system 51b is provided with a block registering means 72. Thus, written information or read information is compressed and expanded in the auxiliary storage device and the storage state of the compressed data is controlled by the file system 51b.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

0001

[Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an information storage method of an auxiliary storage device used in computers etc. to compensate for the lack of storage capacity of the main memory, and in particular, an information storage system having a function of compressing/decompressing stored information. The present invention relates to an information storage method of an auxiliary storage device.

0002

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, data stored in an auxiliary storage device has been stored as is without being compressed. However, the size of programs and data continues to increase, and there have been cases where the size of programs and data cannot be stored in auxiliary storage devices such as hard disks.

[0003] For this reason, data to be stored in the auxiliary storage device is now compressed in advance using a special program or the like before being stored in the auxiliary storage device.

[0004] Conventionally, as a technique in this type of field, there has been one as shown in FIG. 2, for example. The configuration will be explained below using figures.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of the structure of a conventional information storage system of an auxiliary storage device. This information storage method is based on processors (CPs) connected to each other via a bus 11.
U) 12 and a computer 10 having a memory 13. Further, an auxiliary storage device 20 connected to the bus 11 is provided outside the computer 10.

A hard disk device 22 is provided in the auxiliary storage device 20 via a data writing/reading control device 21 connected to the bus 11 . In addition, the CPU
12 includes a file system which is a program for managing data write/read operations and data storage status of the auxiliary storage device 20, as well as a special program for data compression/expansion (LHarc version 1).
．． 13. LZEXE. EXE v0.91, JPEG
, MPEG, etc.).

Next, the operation will be explained.

In order to write data stored in the memory 13 to the auxiliary storage device 20, the data is first compressed in advance by the CPU 12 using a special program, and the compressed data is sent to the control device 21. The control device 21 writes the compressed data to a predetermined storage block (area) on the hard disk device 22 specified by the file system.

[0009] Furthermore, in order to read the compressed data written in the hard disk device 22 into the memory 13, the control device 21 reads data in a designated storage block from the file system and sends the data to the CPU 12. C.P.
U12 decompresses the sent data using a special program and stores it in memory 13.

0010

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in the information storage method having the above configuration, it is difficult to compress the data to be written to the hard disk device 22 or
In both cases, the CPU 12 in the computer 10 is used to expand the data read from the computer. Therefore, it is necessary to judge whether compression processing or decompression processing is necessary, or which processing to perform, and also to manage these processing and the order of access to the auxiliary storage device 20. There was a need.

[0011] For this reason, compared to the case where the auxiliary storage device 20 is normally accessed without performing compression processing and decompression processing, extra steps are required.
As a result, there is a problem in that the speed of data writing/reading processing between the memory 13 and the hard disk device 22 is reduced.

[0012] Furthermore, since there are extra steps,
The CPU 12 cannot perform other work, and the CPU 12
There was also the problem that the usage efficiency of

The present invention solves the problem of the prior art by taking extra steps to write/write data.
The present invention provides an information storage method for an auxiliary storage device that solves the problems of slowing down read processing and reducing CPU usage efficiency.

[0014]

[Means for Solving the Problem] In order to solve the above problem, the first invention provides a write process for writing information from a main device into the storage block, which has a plurality of storage blocks, and An information storage method for an auxiliary storage device comprising an auxiliary storage device that executes a read process of reading information to the main device, and in which execution of the write process and read process is managed by a file system provided in the main device,
The following measures are taken for the auxiliary storage device and file system.

[0015] That is, the auxiliary storage device includes information compression means for compressing write information at a predetermined compression ratio to generate compressed information during the write process, and information compression means for generating compressed information by compressing write information at a predetermined compression rate during the write process; , a writing means for writing the compressed information into an arbitrary storage block according to the compression ratio, and an unused storage block remaining without being written by the writing means among the plurality of storage blocks specified in advance by the file system. an unused notification means for notifying the file system of the file system; a reading means for reading the compressed information in the storage block during the reading process; and a decompressing means for decompressing the compressed information read by the reading means. Further, the file system includes an area registration means for registering a plurality of the storage blocks specified in advance by the file system as used areas, and an area registration means for registering the plurality of storage blocks specified in advance by the file system as used areas; and area re-registration means for re-registering the unused storage block notified by the means as an unused area.

[0016] In the second aspect, the present invention has a plurality of storage blocks, and an auxiliary device that executes a write process for writing information from the main device into the storage block and a read process for reading the written information to the main device. In an information storage method for an auxiliary storage device that includes a storage device and manages execution of the write process and read process using a file system provided in the main device, the following measures are provided for the auxiliary storage device and the file system. It is something that

[0017] That is, the auxiliary storage device includes information compression means for compressing write information at a predetermined compression ratio to generate compressed information during the write process, and information compression means for generating compressed information by compressing write information at a predetermined compression rate during the write process; , a writing means for writing the compressed information into an arbitrary storage block according to the compression ratio, a usage notification means for notifying the file system of the storage block in which the compressed information has been written, and a storage block for the reading process. The apparatus is equipped with a reading means for reading compressed information therein, and a decompressing means for decompressing the compressed information read by the reading means. Further, the file system includes block registration means for registering the storage block notified by the usage notification means as a used area.

[0018]

[Operation] In the first invention, since the information storage method is configured as described above, the file system uses the area registration means to register a plurality of storage blocks specified in advance for writing as used areas, When the information compression means compresses the write information at a predetermined compression rate, the writing means writes the compressed information into several storage blocks among the plurality of storage blocks designated for writing according to the compression rate. . After the compression information is written, the unused notification means notifies the file system of unused storage blocks that remain unwritten,
The area reregistration means reregisters the unused storage block as an unused area.

Furthermore, during read processing, the reading means reads compressed information in the storage block, the decompressing means decompresses the read compressed information, and it is transferred to the main device side. This allows compression/expansion processing to be performed simultaneously with writing or reading information to the auxiliary storage device.

In the second invention, when the file system specifies a plurality of storage blocks for writing, the information compression means compresses the writing information at a predetermined compression rate. Further, the writing means writes compressed information to several storage blocks among the plurality of storage blocks designated for writing according to the compression ratio. Then, the usage notification means notifies the file system of the storage block in which the compressed information is written, and the file system that receives the notification registers the storage block as a used area using the block registration means. As a result, writing to or reading from the auxiliary storage device becomes faster than in the first invention. Therefore, the above problem can be solved.

[0021]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an information storage system of an auxiliary storage device showing an embodiment of the present invention. This information storage method is
It includes a computer (main device) 50 and an auxiliary storage device 60 connected thereto. The computer 50 has a CP
U51 is installed, and the CPU 51 is connected to a memory 53 such as a RAM (random access memory) via a bus 52.
It is connected to the.

[0022] The CPU 51 has an application 51a, which is a program, and a file system 51b. The application 51a is, for example, an auxiliary storage device 6.
The file system 51b is a program that instructs the file system 51b to perform data write/read processing for 0, and the file system 51b is a program that manages the data write/read processing in response to instructions from the application 51a. The CPU 51 has a function of controlling data writing and reading processes by operating according to these programs.

The auxiliary storage device 60 is composed of a control device 61 connected to the bus 52 and a hard disk device 62 having a plurality of storage blocks. The control device 61 is
This is a device that controls data writing/reading processing for the hard disk device 62 in response to instructions from the file system 51b, and includes information compression means 61a and writing means 61.
b, unused notification means 61c, reading means 61d, and decompression means 61e.

The information compression means 61a is means for compressing written information at a predetermined compression rate during writing processing to generate compressed information, and the writing means 61b is a means for generating compressed information by compressing written information at a predetermined compression rate during writing processing.
It is means for writing the compressed information into an arbitrary storage block according to the compression ratio among the plurality of unused storage blocks in the hard disk device 62 designated in advance by 1b.

The unused notification means 61c is a means for notifying the file system 51b of unused storage blocks that remain unwritten by the writing means 61b among a plurality of storage blocks specified in advance by the file system 51b, and Means 61d is means for reading compressed information in the storage block during read processing. In addition, the decompressing means 61e is a means for decompressing information read from the storage block during read processing.

Furthermore, the file system 51b includes area registration means 70 for registering a plurality of storage blocks specified by the file system 51b itself as used areas.
and area re-registration means 71 for re-registering the unused storage block notified by the unused notification means 61c as an unused area among the plurality of storage blocks registered by the area registration means 70. ing.

Next, the operation of the information storage system configured as described above will be explained.

First, the data writing processes (a) to (f) to the hard disk device 62 will be explained with reference to FIG. Note that FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of the operation of FIG. 1.

(a) Operation in step S1 The application 51a instructs the file system 51b to write the data stored in the memory 53 to the auxiliary storage device 60.
request to.

(b) Operation in step S2 The file system 51b specifies a plurality of storage blocks in the hard disk device 62 based on the amount of data requested to be written by the application 51a, and notifies the control device 61 of the same. . At that time, the memory address of the data and the size of the data are also notified.

For example, if one storage block has a capacity of 4K bytes and the amount of write data is 38K bytes, the file system 51b selects one of the unused storage blocks in the managed hard disk drive 62. 10
The storage block is designated and the control device 61 is notified of it. At this time, the 10 storage blocks H to Q shown in FIG.
is specified, the storage blocks H to Q are registered as used areas by the area registration means 70.

(c) Operation in step S3 Subsequently, the control device 61 takes in data from the designated memory address in the memory 53, and the data is compressed by the information compression means 61a. Its compression ratio (compression ratio)
is determined by the data content and its compression algorithm. For example, if the compression rate is 50%, the 38K
Bytes of data are compressed to 19K bytes.

(d) In step S4, the operation control device 61 writes the compressed data to the hard disk device 62 using the writing means 61b. At that time, the data is written to some storage blocks among the plurality of storage blocks designated by the file system 51b according to the compression ratio. For example, the data was compressed to 19K bytes, so
As shown in FIG. 4, the previously specified storage blocks H to Q
Of these, the data is written to five storage blocks H to L.

(e) In step S5, the unused notification means 61c of the operation control device 61 notifies the file system 51b of unused storage blocks. For example, since five storage blocks M to Q are unused in the write process described above, the storage blocks M to Q are notified to the file system 51b.

(f) Operation in step S6 The area reregistration means 71 of the file system 51b registers the unused notification means 61.
If the five storage blocks M to Q notified by c are re-registered as unused areas, the series of write processing is completed.

Furthermore, when transferring compressed data from the hard disk device 62 to the memory 53 in response to a request from the application 51a, first the file system 51b
The memory area where the compressed data is read is the memory 53.
Ensure sufficient capacity. After that, the reading means 6 of the control device 61
1d, the compressed data in a predetermined storage block of the hard disk device 62 is read. The read compressed data is transferred to a predetermined address in the memory 53 while being expanded by the expansion means 61e.

Note that during this read process, if it is necessary to transfer data to the memory 53 that exceeds the size of the memory area given by the file system 51b,
The control device 61 requests the necessary memory capacity from the file system 51b.

In this way, in this embodiment, the data is compressed and stored in the auxiliary storage device 60, so the data can be stored in an area smaller than the original data capacity of the hard disk device 62. , even if the transfer speed of the hard disk device 62 is slow, the memory 5
3 and the control device 61 can be increased. Therefore, a hard disk device 62 with a slow data transfer rate and low capacity can be used efficiently, so a low-cost hard disk device 62 can be used.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an information storage system of an auxiliary storage device showing another embodiment of the present invention, in which elements common to those in FIG. 1 are given the same reference numerals.

The difference in this information storage method from the above embodiment is that the use notification means 6 is replaced with the unused notification means 61c.
1c-1 is provided, and block registration means 72 is provided in place of area registration means 70 and area re-registration means 71, respectively.

The use notification means 61c-1 is a means for notifying the file system 51b of the storage block in which compressed data has been written, and the block registration means 72 uses the storage block notified by the use notification means 61c-1. This is a means of registering the area as a completed area.

In the above embodiment shown in FIG. 1, the unused storage block H specified by the file system 51b
-Q are once registered as used areas using area registration means 70, and then unused storage blocks M-Q are re-registered as unused areas by area re-registration means 71. On the other hand, in this embodiment, all of the unused storage blocks H to Q specified by the file system 51b are kept in an unused state, and then the used storage blocks H to L are stored in the block registration means. 72, the area is registered as a used area. Other operations are similar to those in the above embodiment.

[0043] In addition to obtaining the same effects as the above-mentioned embodiment, this embodiment uses the registration method described above, so that access to the auxiliary storage device 60 is faster than in the above-mentioned embodiment. .

Note that the present invention is not limited to the illustrated embodiment, and various modifications are possible. For example, there are the following variations.

(1) In the above embodiment, the present invention is limited to reading and writing data requested by the application 51a, but it can also be applied to reading and writing executable code, for example. (2) Instead of the hard disk device 62, for example, a magnetic tape device or an optical disk device may be used. (3) The plurality of storage blocks H to Q designated in advance by the file system for writing may be continuous areas or discontinuous areas.

[0046]

As explained in detail above, according to the first invention, the auxiliary storage device is provided with information compression means, writing means, unused notification means, reading means, and decompression means, and the file system is , an area registration means and an area re-registration means are provided to compress/expand write information or read information in the auxiliary storage device, so there is no need to perform compression/expansion processing in the main device as in the past. , the extra steps expended in the compression/decompression process can be omitted. Therefore, the speed of write/read processing is improved, and the main device can perform other tasks by the omitted steps, so it can be used more efficiently.

According to the second invention, the auxiliary storage device is provided with information compression means, writing means, usage notification means, reading means, and decompression means, and the file system is provided with block registration means. Since the write information or the read information is compressed/expanded in the auxiliary storage device in the same manner as in the above, the speed of the write/read processing is further improved compared to the first invention.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an information storage method of an auxiliary storage device showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of an information storage method of a conventional auxiliary storage device.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of the operation in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a storage format of the hard disk device in FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a configuration diagram of an information storage method of an auxiliary storage device showing another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

50 Main device 60 Auxiliary storage device 61a Information compression means 61b Writing means 61c Unused notification means 61c-1 Usage Notification Means 61d Reading means 61e Expansion means 70 Area registration means 71 Area reregistration means 72 Block registration means

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. An auxiliary storage device that has a plurality of storage blocks and executes a write process for writing information from a main device into the storage blocks and a read process for reading the written information to the main device. , an information storage method for an auxiliary storage device that manages execution of the write process and read process by a file system provided in the main device,
The auxiliary storage device includes an information compression unit that compresses write information at a predetermined compression rate to generate compressed information during the write process, and a compressed information compressor that compresses the write information at a predetermined compression rate during the write process; writing means for writing the compressed information into an arbitrary storage block according to the file system; an unused notification means for notifying a system; a reading means for reading out compressed information in the storage block during the reading process; and a decompression means for decompressing the compressed information read by the reading means; The system includes an area registration means for registering the plurality of storage blocks specified in advance by the file system as used areas;
It is characterized by comprising an area re-registration means for re-registering the unused storage block notified by the unused notification means as an unused area among the plurality of storage blocks registered by the area registration means. Information storage method of auxiliary storage device. 2. An auxiliary storage device having a plurality of storage blocks and executing a write process of writing information from a main device into the storage block and a read process of reading the written information to the main device. , an information storage method for an auxiliary storage device in which execution of the write process and read process is managed by a file system provided in the main device, wherein the auxiliary storage device compresses written information at a predetermined compression rate during the write process; information compression means for generating compressed information; a writing means for writing the compressed information into an arbitrary storage block according to the compression rate among the plurality of storage blocks specified in advance by the file system; a use notification means for notifying the file system of a storage block in which compressed information has been written; a reading means for reading compressed information in the storage block during the reading process; and decompressing the compressed information read by the reading means. An information storage method for an auxiliary storage device, characterized in that the file system further comprises a block registration means for registering the storage block notified by the usage notification means as a used area. .