LZ77 COMPRESSION OF DATA WITH DATA RUNS

Methods and apparatus are described by for compressing data using LZ77 compression. Embodiments determine an initial run from input data. The initial run includes repeating data at a first location and has a first length. A hash chain is updated with a proper set of hashes from prefixes from the initial run. A first search engine determines a second run that includes the repeating data at a second location. The second run has a second length less than the first length. A first matching location is determined within the input data having the repeating data using the hash chain and the second run. The first matching location is the first location. The first matching location, the second location, and the second length are written to an output buffer. The output buffer includes a compressed version of the input data.