Patent ID: 7774541

Claim:
A storage apparatus comprising: a main storage medium; a non-volatile memory, which is used as a cache of the main storage medium, wherein a region of the non-volatile memory is divided into a fixed region and a non-fixed region according to whether or not data is fixed; and a block management unit which manages physical blocks using virtual addresses, wherein the physical blocks are allocated to the non-volatile memory, wherein the block management unit comprises: a block allocation unit, which allocates physical blocks to the non-volatile memory; a block collection unit, which collects the physical blocks allocated to the non-volatile memory; a bad block management unit, which manages a bad block; a power interruption recovery unit, which restores the storage apparatus using a logical block address, and fixed region and non-fixed region data indicators, stored in the non-volatile memory as a metadata in case of an unexpected power interruption; a block mapping table management unit, which manages a block mapping table indicating a mapping relationship between physical block numbers and virtual block numbers that are allocated to the physical block numbers; and a list storage unit, which stores an allocated block list enumerating allocated physical blocks and a free block list enumerating vacant physical blocks.