Patent ID: 8014097

Claim:
A disk drive comprising: a recording disk having a plurality of concentric data tracks for the storage of user data from a host computer; a write head for writing data to the data tracks; a controller for selecting the data tracks where data is to be written by the write head; memory coupled to the controller; and wherein the controller includes logic for executing method acts comprising: (a) grouping the data tracks into segments having a plurality of data tracks; (b) counting the number of writes to each segment and storing the counts in memory; and (c) when a count reaches a threshold representing an excessively written segment, grouping the tracks in said excessively written segment into segments having fewer data tracks than said excessively written segment, and if said segments having fewer data tracks than said excessively written segment have not been written to in a predetermined time, regrouping said segments having fewer data tracks than said excessively written segment into a single segment and freeing the memory used for storing the counts for said segments having fewer data tracks than said excessively written segment.