Patent ID: 9569447
Date: 2017-02-14
CPC Classifications: G06F

Claim:
1. A file access method comprising: accessing a file allocation table (FAT) in a computer file system associated with a storage device, the FAT comprising a plurality of cluster addresses corresponding to a plurality of clusters allocated to a file stored in the storage device; reading a cluster address from among the plurality of cluster addresses to identify a location of a next cluster from among the plurality of clusters, the cluster address being configured by a plurality of bits, wherein one or more bits from among the plurality of bits are read to determine a presence of a signature value and the presence of the signature value being indicative of an allocation of a set of contiguous clusters from among the plurality of clusters; computing a number of contiguous clusters in the set of contiguous clusters based on the determination that the signature value is present in the cluster address, the number of contiguous clusters computed based on a pre-determined number of consecutive cluster addresses succeeding the cluster address; and reading the set of contiguous clusters from the storage device based on the computed number of contiguous clusters.