Patent ID: 8090925

Claim:
A method comprising storing data in streams of varying size, wherein an operating system writes data to storage as: (a) file type operating system files, and (b) block type operating system files comprising a plurality of equally-sized data blocks; said method comprising steps of: receiving instructions to write a stream of data to storage; identifying the size of said stream of data; comparing the size of said stream of data to an upper threshold and a lower threshold; writing said stream of data to storage as a file type operating system file if the identified size is above said upper threshold; writing said stream of data to storage in a first treated way if the identified size is between said upper threshold and said lower threshold; and writing said stream of data to storage in a second treated way if the identified size is below said lower threshold; wherein: said first treated way and second treated ways comprise writing a stream of data to a data block in a block operating system file, and wherein: a data block having data written in said first treated way contains no more than a single stream of data, and a data block having data written in said second treated way contains a plurality of streams of data.