VIRTUAL MEMORY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM WITH ADAPTIVE KNOWLEDGE BASE

摘要

The present invention provides methods and apparatus for optimizing the size and speed of a volatile memory. In a preferred embodiment, the optimization is achieved through two interrelated componts, a compression driver and a knowledge base. The compression driver provides real time compression of a volatile memory while the knowledge base stores information related to the frequency of access of particular data and the optimal compression algorithm for that data. The information stored in the knowledge base may be used either to compress certain data according to a preferred algorithm or to determine whether that data should be stored in a hard disk or other memory that is slower than the volatile memory. Foe each page of an application program, the knowledge base stores the predicted or actual compression ratio of the page, the best compression algorithm to use for that page, the frequency that the page has been accessed, and, for pages with a very high compression ratio, the actual compression data. The knowledge base may be stored in a non-volatile memory and updated over time, thus increasing the statistical sample for the information stored in the knowledge base.