Patent ID: 7139879

Claim:
A method of improving fault-based multi-page pre-fetches comprising the steps of: assigning a value to a file when the file is opened, the value for determining whether previous data has been read from a random access memory (RAM) or from a storage device; determining whether data from the file is being read randomly or sequentially upon receiving a request to read data from the file, the request including a range of data to be read, the range of data spanning more than one page; determining, if data is being read randomly from the file, whether previous data has been read from the RAM or from the storage device; attempting to read the data from the RAM if previous data has been read from the RAM or read the data all at once from the storage device using only one page fault if previous data has been read from the storage device; and increasing the value by an award if the requested data is in the RAM.