Controller with extended status register and method of use therewith

A method for providing status information of a plurality of events in time across a plurality of flash memory devices, the method comprising:

• performing in a controller comprising a first interface through which to communicate with a host, a second interface through which to connect to a plurality of flash memory devices in parallel, wherein each of the plurality of flash memory devices comprises a three-dimensional memory, a status register, a extended status register, and a processor, wherein the extended status register is a circular buffer:
• storing, in the extended status register, status information of a plurality of events in time across the plurality of flash memory devices by appending each event instance to a tail of the circular buffer;
• monitoring a head of the circular buffer to detect when the circular buffer is near a full/over-write condition;
• in response to detecting that the circular buffer is near the full/over-write condition, setting a fail indicator in the status register even though a present event is successful and does not, on its own, warrant the fail indicator being set in the status register;
• receiving a request from the host for the status information of the plurality of events;
• and
• in response to the request, providing the status information of the plurality of events to the host for analysis, wherein the host receives the status information of the plurality of events on an aggregated basis rather than after each event;
• wherein the status information includes an indication that the processor detected a failure in programming a page of data to a block of memory in the plurality of flash memory devices and copied that page and preceding pages in the block to a replacement block in the plurality of flash memory devices.