Patent ID: 8904147

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a translation table having a plurality of translation table entries, each translation table entry having a share bit and a plurality of pointers that each point to a memory fragment in a memory block, wherein the share bit is set on a first translation table entry when the first translation table entry includes at least one pointer that points to a memory fragment in the memory block that is shared with a second translation table entry, wherein each translation table entry includes a delta bit, wherein the delta bit on the first translation table entry is set when the first translation table entry includes the at least one pointer that points to the memory fragment in the memory block that is shared with the second translation table entry and when the first translation table entry includes at least one pointer that points to a different memory fragment in the memory block that is not shared with the second translation table entry, and wherein the delta bit on the first translation table entry is cleared when the first translation table entry does not include the at least one pointer that points to a different memory fragment in the memory block that is not shared with the second translation table entry; and a reuse mechanism that identifies first and second memory blocks with identical content, changes a translation table entry corresponding to the first memory block to point to at least one memory fragment in the second memory block, releases at least one memory fragment in the first memory block that was freed up when the translation table entry corresponding to the first memory block was changed to point to the at least one memory fragment in the second memory block, and sets the share bit of the translation table entries corresponding to the first and second memory blocks, wherein the reuse mechanism generates a private delta in the different memory fragment in the memory block that is not shared with the second translation table entry and sets the delta bit on the first translation table entry, wherein the private delta references previously-stored content.