Patent ID: 6944742
Filing Date: 2005-09-13
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. An arrangement for use in providing an application access a non-volatile memory, the arrangement comprising: an operating system; and a device driver, wherein the operating system is configured to exchange input/output (I/O) requests with the application and exchange corresponding file system requests with the device driver, and wherein the device driver is configured to store the file system data received from the operating system in a plurality of reserved sectors within the non-volatile memory, compress the file system data stored within in the plurality of reserved sectors to create a compressed data block, and store the compressed data block in at least one physical subsector within the non-volatile memory, wherein the physical subsector is associated with at least one virtual sector identifiable through sector allocation information stored in a volatile memory that is operatively accessible by the operating system, wherein the device driver is further configured to present the operating system with a plurality of operatively accessible virtual sectors resulting in a virtual memory capacity that exceeds the actual physical capacity of the non-volatile memory, wherein the device driver is further configured to map the plurality of virtual sectors to at least one physical subsector through a Virtual Sector Table (VST) stored in the volatile memory and present the operating system with the VST, and wherein the device driver is further configured to store a Sector Allocation Table (SAT) within the volatile memory, the SAT mapping the physical subsectors to the VST.