Apple Inc.

Khalu Bazzani

Cheng Ping Tan

Dominic Benjamin Giampaolo

Joseph Sokol, Jr

Christopher John Sarcone

Sergio J Henriques

A hybrid storage device that includes a hard-disk drive (HDD) and a flash memory is described. When control logic in the hybrid storage device receives a request from an external device to write a block of data to a logical address in a first portion of an address space that maps to the HDD, the control logic writes the block of data to the HDD. However, if there is a change in environmental state information of the hybrid storage device during the write operation, the control logic writes at least a portion of the block of data to a logical address for the block of data in a second portion of the address space which maps to the flash memory. Note that the address space may be common to the external device and the hybrid storage device.

Hybrid-device storage based on environmental state

A composite memory device that includes different types of non-volatile memory devices, which have different performance characteristics, is described. This composite memory device may receive requests, a given one of which includes a command, a logical address for at least a block of data associated with the command, and a hint associated with the command. For the given request, the composite memory device executes the command on the block of data at the logical address in at least one of the types of non-volatile memory devices. Furthermore, the composite memory device conditionally executes the hint based on one or more criteria, such as: available memory in the types of non-volatile memory devices, traffic through an interface circuit in the composite memory device, operational states of the types of non-volatile memory devices, a target performance characteristic of the composite memory device, and an environmental condition of the composite memory device.

Including performance-related hints in requests to composite memory

A computer system that generates a disposition instruction and an associated access command directed to a block of data at a logical address is described. The disposition instruction and the access command are communicated to a memory system in the computer system via a communication link. Note that the memory system includes different types of memory having different performance characteristics, and the disposition instruction is generated based on the different performance characteristics. In response to the access command, the memory system accesses the block of data at the logical address in a first type of memory in the different types of memory. Furthermore, based on the disposition instruction, the memory system moves the block of data to a second type of memory in the different types of memory to facilitate subsequent accesses to the block of data.

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Khalu Bazzani