Storage Accelerator for Selective Plaintext Extraction From Compressed Data

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current storage devices face performance bottlenecks when increasing data compression units due to memory bandwidth limitations, leading to inefficient data read and write operations, which hinder the reduction of data storage costs.

Innovation Solution

A storage device configuration that includes a CPU, a memory controller, and a dedicated accelerator with a second memory, which handles compressed data storage and decompression, allowing for efficient data extraction and transmission to the first memory, thereby reducing the load on the CPU and improving data reduction rates.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of substance

If the data compression unit is increased to improve data reduction rate, then the data reduction rate is improved, but the memory bandwidth of the CPU becomes a bottleneck and reading performance deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedata reduction rateVSAvoidreading performance

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of substanceVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent divides the data processing function into two independent segments: the CPU handles data management and control tasks, while a dedicated accelerator handles compression and decompression operations. This segmentation allows the CPU to avoid the bottleneck of processing large compressed data volumes, while still achieving high data reduction rates through the accelerator's specialized compression algorithms.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces a dedicated accelerator as an intermediary component between the CPU and storage medium. This accelerator includes its own memory and processing units, acting as a mediator that handles the heavy lifting of compression and decompression operations, thereby preventing the CPU from becoming a bottleneck while maintaining high data reduction rates.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Loss of substance

If the data compression unit is increased to improve data reduction rate, then the data reduction rate is improved, but the amount of data to be read and written from memory becomes extremely larger

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedata reduction rateVSAvoidamount of data to be read and written

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of substanceVSQuantity of substance

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts the compression and decompression functions from the CPU's responsibility and assigns them to a dedicated accelerator. This extraction allows the system to achieve high data reduction rates through large compression units without the CPU being burdened by the corresponding increase in data read/write volume, as the accelerator handles these operations independently with its own memory.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentUS11360669B2Storage device accelerator providing aggregation of divided plaintext data

Publication Date: 2022.06.14 HITACHI VANTARA LTD

AI summary

The storage device includes a first memory, a process device that stores data in the first memory and reads the data from the first memory, and an accelerator that includes a second memory different from the first memory. The accelerator stores compressed data stored in one or more storage drives storing data, in the second memory, decompresses the compressed data stored in the second memory to generate plaintext data, extracts data designated in the process device from the plaintext data, and transmits the extracted designated data to the first memory.