The invention relates to the related technical field of network exchange, in particular to a rapid table refreshing method based on hardware DMA (direct memory access), which comprises the following steps: firstly, constructing a descriptor space and a data space in a memory, filling descriptor table items in the descriptor space, filling data table items in the data space in a message manner, and storing information of the data table items in the descriptor table items; then informing the DMA of the index address of the descriptor table item, initiating a read operation by the DAM through the index address to obtain the descriptor table item, and extracting a corresponding data table item message according to information in the descriptor table item; and finally, analyzing the data table item message to obtain configuration information, recombining the configuration information, and writing the recombined configuration information into a corresponding table item RAM (Random Access Memory) through a configuration interface to complete table item configuration. According to the method and the device, the burden of a CPU (Central Processing Unit) can be reduced, table entries with any bit width of 64-512 bits can be flexibly configured through setting, and the table refreshing time is greatly saved due to the adoption of a pure hardware mode.