Transparent peripheral file systems with on-board compression, decompression, and space management

A transparent peripheral file system comprising:

• a. a host computer including an execution environment within which originate commands for a mass storage file system;
• b. a virtual file system executed by the host computer and that accepts, from the execution environment, file system commands pertaining to the peripheral file system recited in (d) below, that routs those file system commands to the peripheral file system and that subsequently exchanges, pursuant to the execution of a file system command, data and status information between, and only between, the peripheral file system and the execution environment of the host computer;
• c. a peripheral file system adapter, responsive exclusively to the virtual file system, that appears to be the peripheral file system to the virtual file system, while instead conveying to the peripheral file system recited in (d) below file system commands pertaining to the peripheral file system, and that also subsequently exchanges data and status information between only that peripheral file system and the virtual file system pursuant to the execution of a file system command;
• d. a peripheral file system, coupled to the peripheral file system adapter, the peripheral file system responding to exclusively the file system adapter by storing and retrieving data on the medium of the random access mass storage peripheral recited in (e) below by issuing commands comprising a hardware command set for that random access mass storage peripheral, the peripheral file system having a space management paradigm adapted to the particular way the random access mass storage peripheral reads and writes data;
• and
• e. a random access mass storage peripheral, coupled to the peripheral file system and responsive exclusively to hardware commands issued therefrom.

A random access storage device responsive to file system commands for the storage and retrieval of information, the random access storage device comprising:

• an interface that receives file system commands and that also transfers information to and from the random access storage device;
• a storage mechanism that writes information to and reads information from a storage medium;
• a command execution system, coupled to the interface and to the storage mechanism, that recognizes file system commands received by the interface and that also accomplishes those commands by initiating and controlling sequences of storage mechanism actions that read and write as files the information written to and read from the storage medium;
• and
• a data compressor/decompressor, responsive to the command execution system, having a first port coupled to the interface and also having a second port coupled to the storage mechanism, that compresses and decompresses information, during compression the first port receiving file information to be compressed and the second port presenting to the storage mechanism the resulting compressed file information, while during decompression the second port receiving from the storage mechanism compressed file information to be decompressed and the first port presenting to the interface the resulting decompressed file information.