Use of volatile memory as non-volatile memory

1. A computing device comprising:

a volatile memory logically partitioned into a plurality of pages;

a non-volatile storage device, wherein content of a page of the plurality of pages is transferable to the non-volatile storage device by a memory transfer operation;

an operating system of the computing device;

one or more processors that cause the computing device to at least:

receive information indicative of an amount of energy in a battery, the energy available for use by the computing device;

determine an amount of energy needed to perform the memory transfer operation;

determine, based at least in part on the amount of energy needed to perform the memory transfer operation, a number of pages of the plurality of pages whose content is transferable to the non-volatile storage device using the amount of energy available for use by the computing device; and

configure the operating system to treat one or more pages of the plurality of pages of the volatile memory as non-volatile memory, wherein a number of the one or more pages is based on the determined number of pages.

2. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors further cause the computing device to at least:

transfer contents of the one or more pages to a reserved portion of the non-volatile storage device.

3. The computing device of claim 2 , wherein the contents of the one or more pages are transferred in response to receiving information indicative of a reduction in the amount of energy in the battery.

4. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein configuring the operating system comprises updating configuration interface data with information indicative of one or more pages of non-volatile memory corresponding to the one or more pages of volatile memory.

5. A method of using memory of a computing device, the method comprising:

obtaining information indicative of an amount of energy needed to transfer contents of a page of volatile memory to non-volatile memory;

receiving information indicative of an amount of energy available for transferring contents of the page of volatile memory to the non-volatile memory;

determining, based at least in part on the amount of energy needed, that the contents of the page of volatile memory are transferable to the non-volatile memory using the amount of energy available; and

configuring an operating system of the computing device to treat the page of volatile memory as a page of non-volatile memory.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

transferring the contents of the page of volatile memory to a reserved portion of the non-volatile memory.

7. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

transferring the contents of the page of volatile memory to a reserved portion of the non-volatile memory in response to receiving information indicative of a reduction in the amount of energy available for transferring contents of the page of volatile memory to the non-volatile memory.

8. The method of claim 5 , wherein configuring the operating system comprises updating configuration interface data with information indicative of one or more pages of non-volatile memory corresponding to the one or more pages of volatile memory.

9. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

determining that the contents of the page of volatile memory are transferable to the non-volatile memory based at least in part on information indicative of at least one of a performance mode or a safety mode of the computing device.

10. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

receiving information indicative of the computing device having switched from utility power to battery power;

configuring the operating system to treat the page of volatile memory as volatile memory based at least in part on a length of time since the computing device switched from utility power to battery power; and

transferring the contents of the page of volatile memory to the non-volatile memory.

11. The method of claim 5 , wherein the information indicative of an amount of energy needed to transfer contents of a page of volatile memory to non-volatile memory is based at least in part on energy consumed by performing a direct memory access transfer from the page of volatile memory to the non-volatile memory.

12. The method of claim 5 , wherein the information indicative of an amount of energy needed to transfer contents of a page of volatile memory to non-volatile memory is based at least in part on energy consumed by a processor initiating an operation to transfer the contents of the page.

13. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

determining that the contents of the page of volatile memory are transferable based at least in part on a number of other pages of volatile memory configured to be treated by the operating system as non-volatile memory pages.

14. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

determining a maximum number of pages of volatile memory that are transferable to the non-volatile memory using the energy available for transferring contents of the page of volatile memory to the non-volatile memory.

15. A system comprising:

means for obtain obtaining information indicative of an amount of energy needed to transfer contents of a volatile memory to a non-volatile memory;

means for receiving information indicative of an amount of energy available for transferring the contents of the volatile memory to the non-volatile memory;

means for identifying, based at least in part on the amount of energy needed, a portion of the volatile memory that is transferable to the non-volatile memory using the amount of energy available; and

means for configuring an operating system of the system to treat the portion of the volatile memory as non-volatile memory.

16. The system of claim 15 , comprising:

means for identifying the portion of the volatile memory that is transferable to the non-volatile memory by at least determining an amount of memory that could be transferred to the non-volatile memory using the amount of energy available.

17. The system of claim 15 , comprising:

means for calculating a statistical probability that, in an event of a utility power interruption, the portion of the volatile memory would be transferable to the non-volatile memory using the amount of energy available.

18. The system of claim 15 , comprising further:

means for transferring the portion of volatile memory to a reserved portion of the non-volatile memory in response to receiving information indicative of a reduction in the amount of energy available for transferring the contents of the volatile memory to the non-volatile memory.

19. The system of claim 15 , wherein the operating system is configured to treat the portion of the volatile memory as non-volatile memory by at least updating configuration and interface data accessed by the operating system.

20. The system of claim 15 , wherein the portion of the volatile memory is treated by the operating system as non-volatile memory by at least providing, to an application executing on the system, information indicative of a commit mode compatible with data stored in the portion of the volatile memory.