The present invention is related to a data storage management in a mobile device. More particularly, the present invention is related to a method and apparatus for efficient data storage and management in order to reduce battery consumption in a mobile device.
With the advances in memory and storage technology, the available capacity for data storage on the mobile devices is going to be nearly infinite. The user will need to search and use large amounts of information quite often. Inefficient searches over a vast storage will drain the limited battery power of the mobile devices. The usage of the information itself can also affect the battery consumption, (e.g., mp3 playback).
In prior art, data is stored on a storage device on an “as-it-arrives” basis. Though there is some limited organization of data in terms of folders and subfolders, the storage mechanism is not necessarily efficient for searches. Different parts of a single file may be physically stored on different tracks or sectors of a hard disk. Two files grouped under the same folder may be stored quite apart on the hard disk, possibly depending on the time gap between their storage. Different file types of similar content have different characteristics. For example, both mp3 and wav files belong to the music category. Some metadata about the bit rate, artist, copyrights, and the like may be found in the initial part of the files. However, the arrangement of this metadata in the mp3 file is different from that in a wav file.
In the prior art, the storage of data is almost completely dependent on its time of arrival. The files may be fragmented, (i.e., stored on distant physical locations). This slows down the search. There is no uniform metadata across different file types even though they fall in the same content category (like music or pictures). This requires different search methods for different file types of similar content category. In addition, due to limited memory, files are stored in a compressed form. They need to be decompressed on the fly during use. This results in higher processing load during the file use. The inefficient searches and extensive run time processing cause more power drain of the battery of the mobile devices.
The present invention is related to a method and apparatus for efficient data storage and management in order to reduce battery consumption in a mobile device. Two data stores, an unorganized store and an organized store, are provided in the mobile device. The unorganized store stores a data in as-it-arrives basis. The organized store stores data in a way that is more efficient for data search and retrieval. A controller controls the unorganized store and the organized store such that new data is stored in the unorganized store while the mobile device is battery powered and moved to the organized store while the mobile device is powered by an external power source. The data is retrieved from the organized store once the data is moved to the organized store.
When referred to hereafter, the terminology “mobile device” includes but is not limited to a user equipment (UE), a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU), a mobile station, a fixed or mobile subscriber unit, a pager, a notebook computer, a palmtop computer, a personal data assistant (PDA), or any other type of portable devices.
The features of the present invention may be incorporated into an integrated circuit (IC) or be configured in a circuit comprising a multitude of interconnecting components.
When the mobile device 100 is battery powered, once the data is moved to the organized store 120, the mobile device 100 does not consume its battery for data analysis, movement, decompression, metadata insertion, or the like. When the mobile device 100 is on the external power, the mobile device 100 switches to a higher operating voltage and frequency to perform very fast computations for data analysis, data movement from the unorganized store 110 to the organized store 120, decompression of the compressed data, metadata generation and insertion, or the like.
The data is first stored in the unorganized store 110 in an as-it-arrives basis. If the data is compressed, the data is stored in the unorganized store 110 in a compressed format. The unorganized store 110 is needed for backward compatibility with all file types, efficient usage of the transmission media, (i.e., data flows in compressed format to conserve the bandwidth), efficient usage of the battery power, (i.e., compressed data is stored in less time), and random nature of data arrival which means that different content types may arrive at different times.
The organized store 120 may be organized into a plurality of substores.
The substores may be user independent. In other words, the substores do not follow the Windows'“C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\My Music” paradigm. It follows user defined paradigm, such as “C:\Music” paradigm. This results in efficient search of shared files.
The controller 130 attaches metadata to the data before storing the data in the organized store 120. The metadata is search oriented, resulting in efficient searches. The metadata may be generated when the content of the data is analyzed. For example, a picture file may contain a date and time imprint. The data and time imprint is extracted when the data is analyzed and converted into metadata. The format of the metadata is uniform across all the files in the same substore because of the similar content nature of the substore. By making the metadata uniform, only one search method is needed for all the files within the substore.
Sharing rights to the data between users may be defined by the metadata. The metadata may have a “public/private” flag. If the flag is set to “private”, the data may have an “owner” associated with it and only the owner may access the data. If the flag is set to “public”, the data may be accessed by anyone.
All data in the organized store 120 is stored in a decompressed format. If the mobile device 100 originally received the data in a compressed format, the data is stored in the unorganized store 110 in a compressed format and the controller 130 decompresses the data while moving the data to the organized store 120. For example, mp3 files are converted into wav format before storing them in the organized store 120. This minimizes the run-time power consumption while the mobile device 100 is battery powered because no run-time data conversion is needed.
All parts of a file are stored at the same physical location of the organized store 120, (i.e., there is no fragmentation of the file). This makes the run-time access of the file smooth without having to jump across tracks.
Keyword dependent linked lists may be provided based on the metadata. For example, all Jazz music files may form one linked list. At the same time all the music by artist John Lennon may form another parallel linked list. Also all the music files released in 2005 may form another linked list. Thus, the same file is accessible by different paths, depending on the keyword.
The linked lists of the files in the substore are illustrated in
For example, the linked lists may be formed by sorting the files in an alphabetical order on the basis of filenames, creation timestamps, access timestamps, or the like, and inserting pointers to previous and next files as the metadata. If there is no keyword itself, the file may still be searched efficiently because it is already sorted alphabetically. This is useful if no special keyword or property can be found within the file or data to associate it with a keyword or property-based search method. This linking is preferred from the run-time sorting provided by the conventional file-based operating systems because the run-time processing consumes battery power.
The linked lists and uniform metadata make searching efficient by any keyword.
When a file is deleted, it is unnecessary to move the rest of the data since the mobile device 100 has sufficient storage. Only the access flags in the metadata need to be modified to make the file inaccessible and the previous and next pointers for the linked list need to be updated. This ensures that there is no disk fragmentation.
Certain characteristics applicable to a folder in the unorganized store 110 may be retained for the files while they are being moved to the organized store 120. For example, the unorganized store may include a folder for storing encrypted data. In such case, the organized store may include a special substore for storing the encrypted data. However, actual encryption may not be applied to reduce the run time processing for decryption.
It is determined whether a substore is defined for the data type in a data management registry (step 314). If there is no substore for the data type, a new substore is defined in the data management registry (step 316). The data is then stored in the defined substore for the data type (step 318). The original data in the unorganized store 110 is then deleted (step 320) and the data is accessible from the organized store (step 322).
Since the organized store 120 is always searched first, the searches would be faster than the conventional mechanisms. Moreover, since the data in the organized store is decompressed and unfragmented, no run-time processing is needed, which results in battery power conservation.
The data retrieval scheme of the present invention may provide an abstraction function to make the storage transparent to applications. For example, if an application expects certain file in some specific folders, (e.g., a system folder in Windows), the controller 130 provides that lookup by translating the lookup request into substore-keyword list-access-rights-etc. combination.
Soft hyperlinks may be generated based on the keyword based linked lists, (i.e., the metadata attached to the stored files). This is more efficient than the conventional hyper text markup language (HTML) that uses hard hyperlinks because the hard hyperlinks do not work well if the data is moved. Examples of the soft hyperlinks are “Music\John Lennon\1972” or “Most Recently Used Documents.”
Although the features and elements of the present invention are described in the preferred embodiments in particular combinations, each feature or element can be used alone without the other features and elements of the preferred embodiments or in various combinations with or without other features and elements of the present invention.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/712,803 filed Aug. 31, 2005, which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth.
Number | Date | Country | |
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60712803 | Aug 2005 | US |