HYBRID-HDD WITH MULTIPLE CACHING MODES

摘要

Data is stored in a hybrid HDD that includes a magnetic storage medium and a nonvolatile solid-state device according to multiple modes of operation: a full caching mode, a transitional caching mode, and an HDD only mode. The mode of operation may be selected based on the current condition or performance of individual storage regions in a nonvolatile solid-state device of the hybrid HDD, or on the current condition or performance of the nonvolatile solid-state device as a whole. As the nonvolatile solid-state device undergoes wear, performance of the hybrid HDD is maintained by using less reliable memory blocks in the nonvolatile solid-state device as a read cache, even when these memory blocks are considered too unreliable to store dirty data.

主权项

1. A data storage device comprising:
a nonvolatile solid-state storage device; a magnetic storage device; and a controller configured to store data in the data storage device according to one of a first mode of operation, a second mode of operation, and a third mode of operation, wherein the controller in the first mode of operation stores data associated with a command received from a host in a particular region of the nonvolatile solid-state storage device, wherein the controller in the second mode of operation stores data associated with a first command received from the host in the particular region when the data associated with the first command are stored in the magnetic storage device, and does not store data associated with a second command received from the host in the particular region when the data associated with the second command are not stored in the magnetic storage device, and wherein the controller in the third mode of operation stores no data associated with a command received from the host in the particular region.