Patent ID: 8799568
Filing Date: 2014-08-05
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A mass storage device, comprising: nonvolatile semiconductor memory configured to cache data, the nonvolatile semiconductor memory having a predetermined usable lifetime; a degradation testing module configured to perform a degradation test on the nonvolatile semiconductor memory to determine an extent to which the nonvolatile semiconductor memory has degraded, wherein the degradation test comprises a life monitor module configured to determine whether the nonvolatile semiconductor memory has reached the predetermined usable lifetime in response to the degradation test; and a hard disk controller module configured to suspend the caching of data in the nonvolatile semiconductor memory in response to the nonvolatile semiconductor memory having reached the predetermined usable lifetime, wherein iteratively performing the operation on the nonvolatile semiconductor memory until the nonvolatile semiconductor memory reaches the predetermined state comprises