Goke US Research Laboratory

Yen-Lan Hsu

Bo-Shian Hsu

Po-Chien Chang

A data storage apparatus executes a garbage collection method. The data storage apparatus includes a NAND flash memory including blocks each of which includes pages. In the garbage collection method, a destination block is selected from the blocks. Mapping tables and a relevance bitmap are built before writing user data into the destination block. Each bit in the relevance bitmap is related to one of the mapping tables. A victim block is selected from the blocks. At least one of the mapping tables are read according to the relevance bitmap for the victim block. It is determined whether the pages, one after another, of the victim block are in the read mapping tables. The page is set to be a valid page if a page of the victim block is in a read mapping table. Data in the valid pages is written into another block.

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Yen-Lan Hsu