Managing memory fragmentation in hardware-assisted data compression

A computer-implemented method of decompressing data, the method comprising:

• receiving, by compression hardware and from a memory management program that is separate from the compression hardware, a decompression command including a location of two or more buffers of different sizes that contain compressed data to be decompressed into decompressed data and a location in physical computer memory to store the decompressed data;
• retrieving, by the compression hardware and from the two or more buffers, the compressed data;
• decompressing, by the compression hardware, the compressed data into the decompressed data;
• storing, by the compression hardware, the decompressed data in physical computer memory;
• and
• communicating, by the compression hardware and to the memory management program, information associated with the decompressed data.

A device, comprising:

• a processor;
• physical computer memory;
• compression hardware separate from, and in communication with, the processor;
• and
• a memory management program executed on the processor that provides a compression command to the compression hardware, the compression command including an address in the physical computer memory of uncompressed data to be compressed into compressed data and a list of a plurality of available buffers having different sizes for storing the compressed data, responsive to receiving the compression command the compression hardware performing operations comprising:
• retrieving, from the physical computer memory, the uncompressed data;
• determining a size of the compressed data;
• selecting at least one buffer of the available buffers in which to store the compressed data, the selecting based on an amount of unused space that will remain in the at least one selected buffer after the compressed data is stored therein;
• and
• communicating information associated with the at least one selected buffer to the memory management program.