Patent ID: 8181062
Filing Date: 2012-05-15
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. An apparatus comprising: a logically contiguous group of at least two drives, wherein each of the drives comprises (i) a first region configured to store compressed data of a previous drive and (ii) a second region configured to store uncompressed data of said drive, (iii) a first port configured to transfer said uncompressed data to a drive controller, and (iv) a second port configured to transfer said compressed data between said drives; a loop connected to a next drive of said logically contiguous group; and a compression/decompression circuit configured to compress and decompress the compressed and uncompressed data stored on each of said drives prior to transferring said compressed data through said second port, wherein said uncompressed data for one of said drives is stored as said compressed data on at least one other of said drives.