Enhanced data access in a storage device
View Patent ↗A flash storage device having improved write performance is provided. The device includes a storage block having a plurality of physical pages and a controller for mapping the plurality of physical pages to a plurality of logical addresses and for writing data to the plurality of physical pages. When updating data previously written to one of the plurality of logical addresses, the controller is configured to write the updated data to a second physical page which is mapped to the logical address. Each of the logical addresses may be associated with a pointer field, which is for storing a pointer value indicating the invalidity of a physical page and/or the location of another physical page.
1. A flash storage device comprising:
a storage block having a plurality of physical pages; and
a controller for mapping the plurality of physical pages to a plurality of logical addresses and for writing data to the plurality of physical pages,
wherein, when updating data previously written to one of the plurality of logical addresses, the controller is configured:
to invalidate a first physical page mapped to the logical address, and
to write updated data to a second physical page which is mapped to the logical address wherein the second physical page is located in the storage block in which the first physical page is located.
2. The flash storage device according to claim 1 , wherein the number of physical pages is greater than the number of logical addresses.
3. The flash storage device according to claim 1 , wherein more than one of the plurality of physical pages are allocated to each of the plurality of logical addresses.
4. The flash storage device according to claim 1 , wherein the controller maps the second physical page to the logical address upon flash initialization.
5. The flash storage device according to claim 1 , wherein the controller maps the second physical page to the logical address after receiving a data update for the logical address.
6. The flash storage device according to claim 1 , wherein to invalidate the first physical page mapped to the logical address, the controller is configured to store a pointer value in a pointer field associated with the first physical page, the pointer value indicating the invalidity of the first physical page and the location of the second physical page.
7. The flash storage device according to claim 1 , wherein to invalidate the first physical page mapped to the logical address, the controller is configured to store a pointer value in a pointer field associated with the logical address, the pointer value indicating the invalidity of the first physical page and the location of the second physical page.
8. The flash storage device according to claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to perform a block carry-over when no other physical pages in the storage block are available to store updated data for the logical address.
9. A flash storage device comprising:
a storage block having a plurality of physical pages; and
a controller for mapping the plurality of physical pages to a plurality of logical addresses and for writing data to the plurality of physical pages,
wherein each of the plurality of logical addresses is associated with a pointer field, and
wherein, when updating data previously written to one of the plurality of logical addresses, the controller is configured:
to store a pointer value in the pointer field associated with the logical address, the pointer value indicating the invalidity of the first physical page and a location of a second physical page, and
to write updated data to the second physical page.
10. The flash storage device of claim 9 , wherein the pointer value comprises an offset value.
11. The flash storage device of claim 9 , wherein the second physical page is located in a different storage block than the first physical page.
12. The flash storage device of claim 9 , wherein the second physical page is located in the storage block in which the first physical page is located.
13. The flash storage device of claim 9 , wherein the storage block includes one or more physical pages which are not initially allocated to any logical address.
14. The flash storage device of claim 9 , wherein the controller is configured to determine a location of a physical page based on a pointer value.
15. The flash storage device of claim 9 , wherein the controller is configured to perform a block carry-over when no other physical pages in the storage block are available to store updated data for a logical address.
16. A method for managing memory operations in a flash storage device, the method comprising:
mapping a plurality of physical pages in a storage block to a plurality of logical addresses;
receiving a write command for one of the plurality of logical addresses;
invalidating a first physical page mapped to the logical address; and
writing updated data to a second physical page which is mapped to the logical address wherein the second physical page is located in the storage block in which the first physical page is located.
17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the number of physical pages is greater than the number of logical addresses.
18. The method of claim 16 , wherein the second physical page is mapped to the logical address upon flash initialization.
19. The method of claim 16 , wherein the second physical page is mapped to the logical address prior to writing updated data to the second physical page.
20. The method of claim 16 , wherein invalidating the first physical page includes storing a pointer value in a pointer field associated with the first physical page, the pointer value indicating the location of the second physical page.
21. The method of claim 16 , further comprising performing a block carry-over when no other physical pages in the storage block are available to store updated data for a logical address.