Pre-suspend before program in a non-volatile memory (nvm)

A solid-state drive (SSD), comprising:

• a flash memory;
• a host command queue configured to accumulate pending data transfer commands to transfer data between the flash memory and a host device, the data transfer commands comprising write commands and read commands;
• and
• a controller circuit configured to, for each write command forwarded from the host command queue to the flash memory for execution, examine the host command queue and direct the flash memory to read data adjacent a target location to which data are to be written by the write command and to transfer the read data to a read cache for subsequent transfer to the host device.

A method, comprising:

• accumulating, in a host command queue, pending data transfer commands to transfer data between a non-volatile memory (NVM) and a host device, the data transfer commands comprising write commands and read commands;
• forwarding a selected write command from the host command queue to the NVM;
• and
• examining the host command queue responsive to the forwarding of the selected write command and directing the NVM to retrieve data adjacent a target location to which write data are to be written by execution of the selected write command.