MANAGING MEMORY FRAGMENTATION IN HARDWARE-ASSISTED DATA COMPRESSION

Systems, devices, and methods for managing fragmentation in hardware-assisted compression of data in physical computer memory which may result in reduced internal fragmentation. An example computer-implemented method comprises: providing, by a memory management program to compression hardware, a compression command including an address in physical computer memory of data to be compressed and a list of at least two available buffers for storing compressed data; using, by the compression hardware, the address included in the compression command to retrieve uncompressed data; compressing the uncompressed data; and selecting, by the compression hardware, from the list of at least two available buffers, at least two buffers for storing compressed data based on an amount of space that would remain if the compressed data were stored in the at least two buffers, wherein each of the at least two selected buffers differs in size from at least one other of the selected buffers.