Early termination error recovery

• US 10,108,481 B1
• Filed: 02/18/2016
• Issued: 10/23/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 02/18/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Seagate Technology LLC (Seagate Technology Holdings Plc)
• Original Assignee: Seagate Technology LLC (Seagate Technology Holdings Plc)
• Inventors: Kataria, Abhay T, Gaertner, Mark A
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Dieu-Minh
• Application Number:
  US15/047,490
• Time in Patent Office: 978 Days
• Field of Search: 714 612, 714 16, 714 2, 714 15, 714 20
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/073 in a memory management context, e.g. virtual memory or cache management memory management G06F12/00; testing of static memory units G11C29/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0754 by exceeding limits
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed to perform early termination error recovery at a data storage device. A data storage device may be configured to perform error recovery operations in response to encountering an error while executing a host command, and terminate the error recovery operations prior to completion based on an error recovery time limit. Based on early termination of the error recovery operations, the storage device can add a storage location corresponding to the error to a scan list of storage locations on which to perform additional error recovery operations. In some embodiments, the host may set the error recovery time limit.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a controller configured to;

receive an indication from a host via a host interface circuit specifying an error recovery time limit to be applied by the controller;

access a memory to execute a read command from the host at a physical storage location of the memory associated with the read command;

perform one or more error recovery operations in response to encountering a read error while executing the read command;

cancel the one or more error recovery operations based on reaching the error recovery time limit specified by the host;

add the physical storage location to a scan list based on reaching the error recovery time limit, the scan list including a list of physical storage locations on which to perform additional error recovery operations on a deferred basis; and

perform the additional error recovery operations for the physical storage location based on the scan list.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 comprising the controller further configured to:

perform the additional error recovery operations at the physical storage location subsequent to returning a failure indicator to the host for the read command.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 comprising the controller further configured to:

receive a logical block address (LBA) with the read command and associated with the physical storage location; and

add the LBA to the scan list based on reaching the error recovery time limit.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 comprising the controller further configured to:

provide information regarding the scan list to the host;

receive an error recovery command from the host to perform error recovery operations on a physical storage location from the scan list; and

perform the additional error recovery operations on the physical storage location based on the error recovery command.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 comprising the controller further configured to:

determine when the apparatus is in an idle state; and

perform the additional error recovery operations on physical storage locations from the scan list based on the apparatus being in an idle state.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 comprising the controller further configured to:

determine a time required to perform error recovery operations available to the apparatus; and

select the one or more error recovery operations to perform from the error recovery operations available to the apparatus based on the determined time required and the error recovery time limit.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 comprising the controller further configured to:

maintain a monitor list of physical storage locations at which errors have been encountered to determine defective sectors to decommission; and

the scan list includes an early exit flag bit field of the monitor list, a set early exit bit flag indicating that a corresponding physical storage location had error recovery operations cancelled based on reaching the error recovery time limit.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 comprising the controller further configured to:

receive the indication from the host to set the error recovery time limit as a global error recovery time limit for all read commands received from the host; and

set the error recovery time limit based on the received indication.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 comprising the controller further configured to:

receive, included with the read command from the host, the indication to set the error recovery time limit for the read command.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

receive a write command from the host;

perform the one or more error recovery operations in response to encountering a write error while executing the write command; and

cancel the one or more error recovery operations based on reaching the host-selected error recovery time limit.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 comprising the controller further configured to:

receive a write command directed to the physical storage location on the scan list;

write data from the write command to the physical storage location;

read back the data from the physical storage location;

remove the physical storage location from the scan list when the data is read back successfully; and

write the data to a different location when the data is not read back successfully.

12. A memory device storing instructions that, when executed, cause a processor to perform a method comprising:

receiving an indication from a host via a host interface circuit specifying an error recovery time limit to apply in executing at least one command from the host;

setting the error recovery time limit to apply based on the received indication;

receiving a command from the host;

accessing a memory device to execute the command;

performing one or more error recovery operations in response to encountering an error while executing the command;

terminating the one or more error recovery operations when the error recovery time limit specified by the host is reached prior to completion of the one or more error recovery operations;

adding a physical storage location corresponding to the error to a scan list based on reaching the error recovery time limit, the scan list including a list of physical storage locations on which to perform additional error recovery operations on a deferred basis; and

performing the additional error recovery operations by selecting the physical storage location from the scan list.

13. The memory device of claim 12, the method further comprising:

providing information regarding the scan list to the host;

receiving an error recovery command from the host to perform the additional error recovery operations on a selected physical storage location from the scan list; and

performing the additional error recovery operations based on the error recovery command.

14. The memory device of claim 12, the method further comprising:

determining when the memory device is in an idle state; and

performing the additional error recovery operations on physical storage locations from the scan list based on the memory device being in an idle state.

15. The memory device of claim 12, the method further comprising:

receiving a write command directed to the physical storage location corresponding to the error;

writing data from the write command to the physical storage location;

reading back the data from the physical storage location;

removing the physical storage location from the scan list when the data is read back successfully; and

writing the data to a different location when the data is not read back successfully.

16. The memory device of claim 12, the method further comprising:

receiving the indication from the host to set the error recovery time limit as a global error recovery time limit for all read commands received from the host; and

setting the error recovery time limit based on the received indication.

17. A method comprising:

receiving a command from a host at a data storage device via a host interface circuit;

receiving an indication from the host via the host interface circuit specifying an error recovery time limit for the data storage device to apply when executing the command;

accessing a memory device to execute the command;

performing one or more error recovery operations at the data storage device in response to encountering an error while executing the command;

terminating the one or more error recovery operations when the error recovery time limit specified by the host is reached prior to completion of the one or more error recovery operations;

adding a physical storage location corresponding to the error to a scan list based on reaching the error recovery time limit, the scan list including a list of physical storage locations on which to perform delayed error recovery operations; and

performing the additional error recovery operations by selecting the physical storage location from the scan list.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

performing the one or more error recovery operations while executing the command includes;

determining whether a next recovery operation will complete prior to the error recovery time limit;

executing the next recovery operation when the next recovery operation will complete prior to the error recovery time limit; and

terminating the one or more error recovery operations when the next recovery option will not complete prior to the error recovery time limit.

19. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

providing an indication of the scan list to the host;

receiving an error recovery command from the host to perform the delayed error recovery operations on a physical storage location from the scan list; and

performing the delayed error recovery operations based on the error recovery command.

20. The method of claim 19 further comprising:

receiving host data included with the error recovery command;

writing the host data to the physical storage location; and

reading the host data from the physical storage location to test the physical storage location for defects.