Patent ID: 8489803

Claim:
A data storage device comprising: at least one solid state non-volatile memory comprising a plurality of readable and writable portions each having a plurality of addressable memory locations; and at least one controller operably coupled to the memory and to interface circuitry supporting communication with a host device, wherein the at least one controller is configured to implement: receiving from the host device via the interface circuitry, a command message, wherein the command message comprises command information identifying an address of a first portion of the memory to be accessed and an associated type of memory access; storing the command information in the data storage device; and repeating said receiving and said storing a plurality of times, thereby generating a plurality of stored command messages with associated respective first portions of memory to be accessed; and wherein the at least one controller is further configured to implement: determining whether at least one stored command message of the plurality of stored command messages identifies at least one respective first portion of the memory upon which the associated type of memory access can presently be performed; performing the associated type of memory access upon the at least one respective first portion of the memory, in response to determining that the at least one stored command message identifies at least one respective first portion of the memory upon which the associated type of memory access can presently be performed; upon completion of the associated type of memory access upon the at least one respective first portion, sending a status message to the host device via the interface circuitry, and deleting, from the plurality of stored command messages, the at least one command message identifying the at least one respective first portion upon which the associated type of memory access was performed; and repeating said determining, said performing, and said sending for each command message of the plurality of command messages; wherein at least a portion of said receiving and said storing is performed concurrently with said determining, said performing, and said sending; and wherein the data storage device does not comprise additional memory of sufficient size for temporary storage of the entire at least one first respective portion prior to being written to the memory.