Zoned namespaces in solid-state drives

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12079487-B2
Application number	US-202117643792-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 10, 2021
Priority date	Sep 25, 2019
Publication date	Sep 3, 2024
Grant date	Sep 3, 2024

Abstract

The present disclosure generally relates to methods of operating storage devices. The storage device comprises a controller and a media unit. The capacity of the media unit is divided into a plurality of zones. The controller is configured to make informed use of errors by update zone metadata to indicate one or more first logical block addresses were skipped and to indicate the next valid logical block address is available to store data. The controller is further configured to update zone metadata to recommend to the host device to reset one or more full zones, to recommend to the host device to transition one or more open zones to a full state, to alert the host device that one or more open zones have been transitioned to the full state, and to notify the host device of the writeable zone capacity of each of the plurality of zones.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A storage device, comprising: non-volatile memory; and a controller coupled to the non-volatile memory, wherein the controller is configured to: update zone metadata to indicate a logical block address (LBA) was skipped to indicate a next valid LBA is available to store data; update zone metadata to recommend to a host device to reset one or more full zones; recommend to the host device to transition one or more open zones to a full state; alert to the host device that one or more open zones have been transitioned to the full state; and collaborate with the host device on data placement and align data based on a same temperature, wherein collaborating comprises adding two new fields to the zone metadata, wherein the two new fields are: Transition Zone to Full Recommendation and Controller Transitioned Full Zone.

2. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to notify the host device of a writable zone capacity of each zone.

3. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to advance a write pointer.

4. The storage device of claim 3 , wherein the controller is further configured to receive zone append commands.

5. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to select a zone write capacity to align to a capacity of physical media boundaries of the non-volatile memory.

6. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the memory device comprises one or more zoned namespaces (ZNS) and wherein the ZNS have different sizes.

7. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to transition one or more open zones to the full state after a predetermined amount of time has passed after updating the zone metadata.

8. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the aligned data eliminates expensive garbage collection routines.

9. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the aligned data reduces write amplification factor.

Assignees

• Western Digital Tech Inc
• Sandisk Technologies Inc

Inventors

• Bjorling Matias
• Hellwig Horst-Christoph Georg
• Landsman David
• Helmick Daniel L
• Parker Liam
• Bennett Alan D
• Grayson Peter
• Hahn Judah Gamliel

Classifications

• G06F3/0652

  Erasing, e.g. deleting, data cleaning, moving of data to a wastebasket · CPC title

• G06F2212/1036

  Life time enhancement · CPC title

• G06F11/2094

  Redundant storage or storage space (G06F11/2056 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G06F3/0679

  Non-volatile semiconductor memory device, e.g. flash memory, one time programmable memory [OTP] · CPC title

• G06F2201/82

  Solving problems relating to consistency · CPC title