Patent ID: 8452912

Claim:
A smart-storage switch solid-state-drive (SSD) comprising: a Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) that retains data when power is lost; a volatile memory that loses data when power is lost; a smart storage switch which comprises: a protocol converter, coupled to a host, for receiving host commands to access the NVM and for receiving host data and a host logical block address (LBA); a LBA range first-in-first-out (FIFO) having entries for storing the host LBA and a length of the host data; a volatile memory controller for interfacing to the volatile memory; a flash controller for interfacing to the NVM; a processor for controlling transfer of host data among the protocol converter, the LBA range FIFO, the volatile memory controller, and the flash controller; a sector data buffer, in the volatile memory, for storing the host data before writing to the NVM; and a lookup table, in the volatile memory, that maps pages in the host LBA to physical pages in a physical-block address (PBA) in the NVM; wherein the lookup table is page-mapped; wherein the processor operates to reduce writes to the NVM to reduce write acceleration; wherein the LBA range FIFO comprises sub-divided entries that are generated by the processor when a new host command has new host data that overlaps host data for a prior entry in the LBA range FIFO, the processor dividing the prior entry into a plurality of sub-divided entries in the LBA range FIFO; wherein sub-divided entries that are completely overlapped by new host data are invalidated and not written to the NVM; whereby writes to the NVM are reduced by invalidating overlapping sub-divided entries in the LBA range FIFO.