Hybrid drive garbage collecting a non-volatile semiconductor memory by migrating valid data to a disk
AssigneeWestern Digital Technologies, Inc.
InventorsWilliam B. Boyle, Alan T. Meyer, Mei-Man L. Syu
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Abstract
A hybrid drive is disclosed comprising a non-volatile semiconductor memory (NVSM) comprising a plurality of blocks, and a head actuated over a disk comprising a plurality of tracks, each track comprising a plurality of data sectors. A garbage collection operation is executed on the NVSM by reading valid data from a first block of the NVSM, writing the valid data to the disk, and erasing the first block.
Claims18
A hybrid drive comprising:
- a non-volatile semiconductor memory (NVSM) comprising a plurality of blocks;
- a disk comprising a plurality of tracks, each track comprising a plurality of data sectors;
- a head actuated over the disk;
- control circuitry operable to execute a garbage collection operation on the NVSM by:
- reading valid data from a first block of the NVSM;
- writing the valid data to the disk;
- and
- erasing the first block.
A method of operating a hybrid drive, the hybrid drive comprising a non-volatile semiconductor memory (NVSM) comprising a plurality of blocks, a disk comprising a plurality of tracks, each track comprising a plurality of data sectors, and a head actuated over the disk, the method comprising executing a garbage collection operation on the NVSM by:
- reading valid data from a first block of the NVSM;
- writing the valid data to the disk;
- and
- erasing the first block.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.