Devices and methods of managing nonvolatile memory device having single-level cell and multi-level cell areas

A nonvolatile memory device;

• comprising:
• a nonvolatile memory comprising a first area of single level cells (SLCs) and a second area of multi-level cells (MLCs);
• and
• a processor configured to manage operations for generating a free memory block by:
• determining, in response to a requirement for the free memory block, whether the free memory block can be created by copying data between memory blocks of the first area,
• in response to determining that the free memory block can be created by copying data between the memory blocks of the first area, copying the data between the memory blocks of the first area to create the free memory block, and
• in response to determining that the free memory block cannot be created by copying data between the memory blocks of the first area, selecting a memory block from the first area having the least amount of free space, where no data is stored, among the memory blocks of the first area and allocating the selected memory block as the free memory block by copying the data stored in the selected memory block of the first area to the second area, wherein:
• when copying data between memory blocks of the first area, the processor is configured to:
• create the free memory block by selecting first through third memory blocks from among the first area, wherein the number of valid pages in the first and second memory blocks is less than or equal to the number of free pages in the third memory block, and
• generate the free memory block by copying data stored in the valid pages of the first and second memory blocks to the free pages of the third memory block, and
• the processor, responsive to the requirement for the free memory block, copies the data stored in the selected memory block of the first area to the second area only when it is determined that the free memory block cannot be created by copying data between the memory blocks of the first area.

A method of managing a nonvolatile memory device comprising a first area of single-level cells (SLCs) and a second area of multi-level cells (MLCs), the method comprising:

• determining, in response to a requirement for a free memory block to be created in the first area, whether first and second memory blocks can be selected from among memory blocks within the first area in which the number of valid pages of the first memory block is equal to or less than the number of free pages of the second memory block;
• and
• generating the free memory block by copying data between the first and second memory blocks of the first area in response to determining that the first and second memory blocks can be selected;
• generating the free memory block by copying data from a selected memory block of the first area to a selected memory block of the second area in response to determining that the first and second memory blocks cannot be selected, wherein:
• in response to the requirement for the free memory block, the data is copied from the selected memory block of the first area to the selected memory block of the second area only when it is determined that the first and second memory blocks cannot be selected, and
• the selected memory block of the first area has the least number of free pages of any memory block within the first area.