US 2014/0181373 A1 · Persistent Storage Device with NVRAM for Staging Writes

Abstract

A persistent storage device includes both persistent storage, which includes a set of persistent storage blocks, and NVRAM, and in particular a set of NVRAM blocks. The persistent storage device also typically includes a storage controller. The persistent storage device, in addition to responding to commands to write data directly to and to read data directly from persistent storage blocks is also configured to write data to specified NVRAM blocks (e.g., specified by a host NVRAM write command) and to transfer data from a specified NVRAM block to a specified persistent storage block. As a result, multiple writes to a particular persistent storage block can be replaced with multiple writes to an NVRAM block and a subsequent single write to the particular persistent storage block. This reduces the number of writes to persistent storage and also reduces the number of corresponding block erase operations.

Claims25

Dependent claims

A persistent storage device, comprising:

persistent storage, comprising a set of persistent storage blocks;
NVRAM, comprising a type of nonvolatile storage distinct from the persistent storage and comprising a set of NVRAM blocks;
a storage controller configured to receive commands from an external host device and further configured to:
in response to a transfer command, transfer data in a specified NVRAM block to a corresponding persistent storage block, wherein the data was previously written to the specified NVRAM block.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application

13/831,218Filed 14 Mar 2013

Priority

26 Dec 2012

Published

26 Jun 2014

Term ends

Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification6 codes

G06F 12/0246
Memory management in non-volatile memory, e.g. resistive RAM or ferroelectric memory: in block erasable memory, e.g. flash memory
G06F 3/0616
Improving the reliability of storage systems: in relation to life time, e.g. increasing Mean Time Between Failures [MTBF]
G06F 3/0656
Vertical data movement, i.e. input-output transfer; data movement between one or more hosts and one or more storage devices: data buffering…
G06F 3/0679
Single storage device: non-volatile semiconductor memory device, e.g. flash memory, one time programmable memory [OTP]

Persistent Storage Device with NVRAM for Staging Writes

Life of this patent

Persistent Storage Device with NVRAM for Staging Writes

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims25