Patent ID: 8683228

Claim:
A method for efficiently storing an electronic communication in a write once, read many times (WORM) storage system, comprising the steps of: receiving a request to open a new file by a third party user space application; and performing a virtual file system call by the storage administrator to the WORM filesystem requesting the creation of a storage entity; and creating said storage entity within the storage system by said WORM filesystem layer, comprising the steps of: allocating an inode in said WORM filesystem layer; and allocating an initial contiguous storage extent within the allocation group of said WORM filesystem layer; whereby said electronic communication can be stored in said storage entity and later retrieved in its entirety; and accumulating blocks of said electronic communication by said storage administrator from said user space application; and parsing of said blocks of said electronic communication by said storage administrator to record the location of each message section of said electronic communication; and transferring said blocks of said electronic communication by said storage administrator to the said storage system until the electronic communication has been transferred, in its entirety, from the said user space application to the said storage system via the storage administrator; and compressing the said blocks of said electronic communication to create compressed data blocks; and encrypting said compressed data blocks to create encrypted data blocks; and writing said encrypted data blocks to said initial contiguous storage extent and to additionally allocated contiguous storage extents within the same said allocation group of said storage system until all said encrypted data blocks are stored in contiguous storage extents within the same said allocation group of said storage system; and modifying said inode and said allocation group of said storage system with meta information about said electronic communication and said contiguous storage extents used within the said allocation group of said storage system to facilitate later retrieval of said data; and modifying said meta information of said inode with said location of each said message section of said electronic communication; and writing the said modified inode to the said storage system; whereby said electronic communication is stored in the said storage system, such that said electronic communication is written to the said storage system in its entirety and said data cannot be modified or deleted after said data is written.