Abstract: An embedded controller disk-drive system including a microprocessor features writing and reading of compressed/decompressed data having an arbitrary length to a rigid disk drive in an efficient manner which is transparent to a host of the disk-drive system. A compression factor relating a size of a logical block to the number of bytes stored in a physical sector on the rigid disk is selected and stored in the microprocessor. The data string is compressed, whereupon the microprocessor generates a specialized table containing descriptor field information for each logical block. The descriptor field contains information on a physical block address corresponding to the location of the compressed data string, the length of the compressed data string, and also, for overflow data, linking sector information for linking the compressed data string between two or more physical blocks on the rigid disk.