METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ENHANCING DATA STORAGUS EFFICIENCY

The present invention improves the interaction of a virtual memory systems and a garbage collection system, thereby reducing garbage collection effort and improving virtual memory performance. The method includes the steps of: (1) developing a secondary memory (e.g. disk) dirty page map; (2) developing a saved state map from a primary memory (e.g. RAM) dirty page map; (3) using the secondary memory dirty page map and the primary memory dirty page map to effectively reduce the size of the base set; (4) performing a garbage collection routine on at least a segment of the heap based upon the effectively reduced base set; and (5) performing a virtual memory routine using the primary memory dirty page map and the saved state map. The apparatus of the present invention implements the method on a digital computer system with a combination of hardware and software.