CAM accelerated buffer management

摘要

A method and apparatus for managing effectively data and command buffers in an I/O subsystem utilizes a content addressable memory (CAM) array (36) having a plurality of CAM storage locations (SL1 . . . SLn). The CAM array is used to store a plurality of SCSI Nexus entries and generates a unique address pointer when there is a match between an incoming SCSI Nexus value and one of the plurality of SCSI Nexus entries. A command buffer (24) or user data buffer (26) is responsive to the unique address pointer for storing and retrieving the command/data section of a Command Control Block in a corresponding one of a plurality of buffer storage locations. As a result, the host CPU (12) or adapter (22) is relieved of much of the overhead associated with managing these buffers.