Patent ID: 6912537
Filing Date: 2005-06-28
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method for mapping a virtual address space into block addresses of at least one data storage device, the method comprising: generating in a data processing system a hierarchical data structure in a primary storage; wherein the hierarchical data structure includes a plurality of layers arranged according to a hierarchy; wherein the plurality of layers include at least a highest layer and a lowest layer; wherein each layer in the hierarchical data structure includes at least one set of data entries; wherein each data entry in each layer represents a range of the virtual address space; wherein for each layer in the hierarchical data structure for which there exists an next lowest layer, each data entry is correlated to a set of data entries in the next lowest layer according to a correlation scheme; wherein each data entry in the lowest layer corresponds to both a virtual address range in the virtual address space and a block address corresponding to a physical data block in the at least one data storage device; wherein each data entry contained within the primary storage corresponds to a virtual address range that is currently occupied with stored data, such that none of the data entries corresponds to only unused physical storage; wherein each physical data block in the at least one data storage device contains virtual address information that identifies at least one corresponding location in the virtual address space for that physical data block; and wherein at least some of the data entries in each layer represent virtual address ranges of a homogeneous size corresponding to that layer.