Patent ID: 8612798

Claim:
A hybrid drive comprising: a disk comprising a plurality of data sectors; a head actuated over the disk; a volatile semiconductor memory (VSM); a non-volatile semiconductor memory (NVSM); and control circuitry operable to: receive a first write command from a host, the first write command comprising first data; store the first data in the VSM; write the first data to a first data sector on the disk; read the first data from the first data sector at least once during a first read operation; when the first read operation fails, write the first data to the NVSM; after writing the first data to the NVSM, read the first data from the first data sector at least once during a second read operation; when the second read operation fails, map out the first data sector; dynamically map a logical block address (LBA) associated with the first data to a physical block address (PBA) of the first data sector at a head of a circular buffer on the disk; when the first read operation fails, set an environment flag; and when the environment flag is set, service write commands received from the host using the NVSM.