Hardware Compression

written by: Ralph Kitzper; article published: year 2010, month 06;

In: Root » Computers and technology » Data compression

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Some hard disk manufacturers have investigated device-level compression into some of their products. This technology moves the compression coprocessor from an expansion board to the disk drive. Such disks can store more information than their resources would otherwise allow. Because the compression circuitry is part of the drive and automatically fits in the middle of the data stream, there's no need for software drivers to make this form of compression work. Unlike ordinary software or hardware compression that requires driver software limiting its use to a specific operating system, device-level compression will work with any operating system and is completely invisible. All it requires is basic hardware compatibility: an interface into which you can plug in the drive.

Such drives have one disadvantage. All compression systems-including software, coprocessor (board-level hardware), and disk device-level compression-use essentially the same compression methods, even the same algorithms. As a result, using more than one of these methods is counterproductive. After you have compressed data, you cannot squeeze it again (at least using the same algorithm). Layering multiple levels of compression won't yield more space, may in fact waste space, and definitely has an impact on performance.

Few, if any, hard disk drives with built-in device-level hardware compression have been marketed. With the great strides made in enhancing capacity with other technological improvements, the gains haven't been worth the pain. It does, of course, remain a possibility should a drive-maker need a capacity edge.

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