Patent ID: 6678788
Filing Date: 2004-01-13
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
In a mass storage system including a mass storage space for storing data items of a plurality of data types, each data item containing data of a corresponding data type and each data type being defined by the characteristics of the information represented by the data, and wherein the storage space is topologically organized as a plurality of basic units of storage space wherein each basic unit of storage space contains storage space for a predetermined number of data blocks of predetermined sizes, a method for storing the data in the storage space, comprising the steps of:categorizing each data item to be written into the storage space as a member of a data type, including performing an initial categorization of each data item to identify whether a data item is a member of one of a plurality of one or more structured data types, having defined data characteristics or a least one general data type having variable data characteristics, and writing each data item that is a member of the one or more structured data types into a corresponding type buffer, and performing a topological categorization of each data item that is a member of at least one general data type and identifying whether each data item that is a member of at least one general data type is a full-basic unit data type wherein the data of the data items form one or more data block groups wherein each data block group conforms to the basic unit of storage space, or a partial-basic unit data type wherein the data of the data items form one or more data block groups wherein each data block group differs from the basic unit of storage space, and writing each data item that is a full-basic unit data type into a full-basic type buffer, and writing each data item that is a partial-basic unit data type into a partial-basic type buffer, upon performing a write of the data items to the mass storage, reading each data item from the corresponding type buffer, and for each data item of a structured data type, ordering the data of the data items into one or more data block groups wherein each data block group corresponds to a basic unit of storage, and writing the one or more data block groups of each structured data type into a corresponding data type area of the storage space, for each data item of the full-basic unit type and of the partial-basic unit type, re-executing the topological classification of each data item and re-categorizing each data item as a full-basic unit data type or as a partial-basic unit data type, and ordering the data of each data item of a full-basic unit data type and the data of each data item of a partial-basic unit data type into one or more corresponding full-basic unit data block groups or one or more corresponding partial-basic unit data block groups wherein each data block group corresponds to a basic unit of storage, and writing the full-basic unit data block groups and the partial-basic unit data block groups into corresponding data type areas of the storage space.