Processing of Un-Map Commands to Enhance Performance and Endurance of a Storage Device

• US 20160117252A1
• Filed: 03/25/2015
• Published: 04/28/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: SanDisk Enterprise IP LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Inventors: Thangaraj, Senthil M., Reddy, Divya, Paulsamy, Venkatesh K., Vasudeva, Satish Babu, Sy, Jimmy, Chandra, Rakesh
• Granted Patent: US 9,558,125 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1068 in sector programmable memories, e.g. flash disk G06F11/1072 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1441 Resetting or repowering
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1471 involving logging of persistent data for recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0246 in block erasable memory, e.g. flash memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0804 with main memory updating G06F12/0806 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0871 Allocation or management of cache space
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0873 Mapping of cache memory to specific storage devices or parts thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1016 Performance improvement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1021 Hit rate improvement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1036 Life time enhancement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/214 Solid state disk
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/312 In storage controller
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/608 Details relating to cache mapping
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/7201 Logical to physical mapping or translation of blocks or pages
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/7205 Cleaning, compaction, garbage collection, erase control
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/7207 management of metadata or control data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/7208 Multiple device management, e.g. distributing data over multiple flash devices

Abstract

A storage device and method enable processing of un-map commands. In one aspect, the method includes (1) determining whether a size of an un-map command satisfies (e.g., is greater than or equal to) a size threshold, (2) if the size of the un-map command satisfies the size threshold, performing one or more operations of a first un-map process, wherein the first un-map process forgoes (does not include) saving a mapping table to non-volatile memory of a storage device, and (3) if the size of the un-map command does not satisfy the size threshold, performing one or more operations of a second un-map process, wherein the second un-map process forgoes (does not include) saving the mapping table to non-volatile memory of the storage device and forgoes (does not include) flushing a write cache to non-volatile memory of the storage device.

Claims

1. A method of managing a storage device, the method comprising:

maintaining a write cache, in volatile memory of the storage device, for storing data corresponding to write commands from a host, wherein the host is operatively coupled to the storage device, the storage device including non-volatile memory;

maintaining a mapping table in volatile memory, the mapping table used to translate logical addresses in a logical address space available to the host to physical addresses in a physical address space of the storage device;

receiving, at the storage device, an un-map command from the host;

determining whether a size of the un-map command satisfies a size threshold, wherein the size of the un-map command corresponds to a number of logical addresses to be un-mapped by the un-map command;

in accordance with a determination that the size of the un-map command satisfies the size threshold, performing one or more operations of a first un-map process, wherein the first un-map process does not include saving the mapping table to the non-volatile memory of the storage device; and

in accordance with a determination that the size of the un-map command does not satisfy the size threshold, performing one or more operations of a second un-map process, wherein the second un-map process does not include saving the mapping table to the non-volatile memory of the storage device and does not include flushing the write cache to the non-volatile memory of the storage device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more operations of the first un-map process include:

determining a number of entries in the write cache that contain dirty data and determining whether the number of entries in the write cache that contain dirty data satisfies a threshold;

in accordance with a determination that the number of entries in the write cache that contain dirty data satisfies the threshold, flushing the write cache to the non-volatile memory of the storage device;

in accordance with a determination that the number of entries in the write cache that contain dirty data does not satisfy the threshold, clearing each entry of the write cache that contains dirty data for a logical address unmapped by the un-map command;

updating the mapping table in volatile memory in accordance with the un-map command; and

adding one or more entries to a log, the one or more entries corresponding to the un-map command.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more operations of the second un-map process include:

for each logical address specified by the un-map command, in accordance with a determination that data for the logical address is stored in the write cache, clearing from the write cache an entry storing the data for the logical address.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more operations of the second un-map process include:

determining whether data for a respective logical address specified by the un-map command is stored in the write cache;

in accordance with a determination that the data for the respective logical address is stored in the write cache;

determining whether the data for the respective logical address is in flight;

in accordance with a determination that the data for the respective logical address is in flight, waiting for a corresponding write operation to complete; and

clearing from the write cache an entry storing the data for the respective logical address;

updating the mapping table in volatile memory in accordance with the un-map command; and

adding one or more entries to a log, the one or more entries corresponding to the un-map command.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the second un-map process allows other commands from the host to be processed along with the un-map command.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein response time of the un-map command corresponds to the size of the un-map command.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising saving the mapping table, on a scheduled basis that is independent of un-map commands received from the host, to the non-volatile memory of the storage device.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the log includes an entry, for a respective un-map command, that includes information identifying a plurality of logical addresses un-mapped in accordance with the respective un-map command.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the log includes an entry, for a respective un-map command, that includes information identifying a range of logical addresses un-mapped in accordance with the respective un-map command.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the storage device comprises one or more flash memory devices.

11. A storage device, comprising:

non-volatile memory;

a write cache; and

a storage controller having one or more processors configured to execute instructions in one or more programs;

wherein the storage controller is configured to perform operations comprising;

maintaining the write cache, in volatile memory of the storage device, for write commands from a host, wherein the host is operatively coupled to the storage device, and the write cache includes write commands from the host not yet saved to the non-volatile memory of the storage device;

maintaining a mapping table in volatile memory, the mapping table used to translate logical addresses in a logical address space available to the host to physical addresses in a physical address space of the storage device;

receiving, at the storage device, an un-map command from the host;

determining whether a size of the un-map command satisfies a size threshold, wherein the size of the un-map command corresponds to a number of logical addresses to be un-mapped by the un-map command;

in accordance with a determination that the size of the un-map command satisfies the size threshold, performing one or more operations of a first un-map process, wherein the first un-map process does not include saving the mapping table to the non-volatile memory of the storage device; and

in accordance with a determination that the size of the un-map command does not satisfy the size threshold, performing one or more operations of a second un-map process, wherein the second un-map process does not include saving the mapping table to the non-volatile memory of the storage device and does not include flushing the write cache to the non-volatile memory of the storage device.

12. The storage device of claim 11, wherein the storage controller includes:

a write cache module for maintaining the write cache;

a mapping module for maintaining the mapping table; and

an un-map module that determines whether the size of the un-map command satisfies the size threshold, performs the first un-map process in accordance with the determination that the size of the un-map command satisfies the size threshold, and performs the second un-map process in accordance with the determination that the size of the un-map command does not satisfy the size threshold.

13. The storage device of claim 11, wherein the one or more operations of the first un-map process include:

determining a number of entries in the write cache that contain dirty data and determining whether the number of entries in the write cache that contain dirty data satisfies a threshold;

in accordance with a determination that the number of entries in the write cache that contain dirty data satisfies the threshold, flushing the write cache to the non-volatile memory of the storage device;

in accordance with a determination that the number of entries in the write cache that contain dirty data does not satisfy the threshold, clearing each entry of the write cache that contains data for a logical address unmapped by the un-map command;

updating the mapping table in volatile memory in accordance with the un-map command; and

adding one or more entries to a log, the one or more entries corresponding to the un-map command.

14. The storage device of claim 11, wherein the one or more operations of the second un-map process include:

for each logical address specified by the un-map command, in accordance with a determination that data for the logical address is stored in the write cache, clearing from the write cache an entry storing the data for the logical address.

15. The storage device of claim 11, wherein the one or more operations of the second un-map process include:

determining whether data for a respective logical address specified by the un-map command is stored in the write cache;

in accordance with a determination that the data for the respective logical address is stored in the write cache;

determining whether the data for the respective logical address is in flight;

in accordance with a determination that the data for the respective logical address is in flight, waiting for a corresponding write operation to complete; and

clearing from the write cache an entry storing the data for the respective logical address;

updating the mapping table in volatile memory in accordance with the un-map command; and

adding one or more entries to a log, the one or more entries corresponding to the un-map command.

16. The storage device of claim 11, wherein the second un-map process allows other commands from the host to be processed along with the un-map command.

17. The storage device of claim 11, wherein response time of the un-map command corresponds to the size of the un-map command.

18. The storage device of claim 11, further comprising saving the mapping table, on a scheduled basis that is independent of un-map commands received from the host, to the non-volatile memory of the storage device.

19. The storage device of claim 11, wherein the storage device comprises one or more flash memory devices.

20. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium, storing one or more programs configured for execution by one or more processors of a storage controller in a storage device, the storage device having non-volatile memory and a write cache, wherein execution of the one or more programs by the one or more processors causes the storage device to perform operations comprising:

maintaining the write cache, in volatile memory of the storage device, for write commands from a host, wherein the host is operatively coupled to the storage device, the storage device including non-volatile memory, wherein the write cache includes write commands from the host not yet saved to the non-volatile memory of the storage device;

maintaining a mapping table in volatile memory, the mapping table used to translate logical addresses in a logical address space available to the host to physical addresses in a physical address space of the storage device;

receiving, at the storage device, an un-map command from the host;

determining whether a size of the un-map command satisfies a size threshold, wherein the size of the un-map command corresponds to a number of logical addresses to be un-mapped by the un-map command;

in accordance with a determination that the size of the un-map command satisfies the size threshold, performing one or more operations of a first un-map process, wherein the first un-map process does not include saving the mapping table to the non-volatile memory of the storage device; and

in accordance with a determination that the size of the un-map command does not satisfy the size threshold, performing one or more operations of a second un-map process, wherein the second un-map process does not include saving the mapping table to the non-volatile memory of the storage device and does not include flushing the write cache to the non-volatile memory of the storage device.