Patent attributes
A data de-duplication approach leverages acceleration hardware in SSDs for performing digest computations used in de-duplication operations and support on behalf of an attached host, thereby relieving the host from the computing burden of the digest computation in de-duplication (de-dupe) processing. De-dupe processing typically involve computation and comparison of message digests (MD) and/or hash functions. Such MD functions are often also employed for cryptographic operations such as encryption and authentication. Often, SSDs include onboard hardware accelerators for MD functions associated with security features of the SSDs. However, the hardware accelerators may also be invoked for computing a message digest result and returning the result to the host, effectively offloading the burden of MD computation from the host, similar to an external hardware accelerator, but without redirecting the data since the digest computation is performed on a data stream passing through the SSD for storage.
