Patent ID: 8296502

Claim:
A data management method, for accessing a flash memory of a flash memory storage system, wherein the flash memory comprises a plurality of physical blocks and the physical blocks are at least grouped into a data area and a spare area, the data management method comprising: configuring a plurality of logical blocks for being accessed by a host; dividing each of the physical blocks into a plurality of physical parts including at least an upper physical part and a lower physical part and respectively mapping the logical blocks to the physical parts; accessing the physical parts according to the logical blocks to be accessed by the host, wherein each of the physical blocks maps to at least two of the logical blocks; selecting a plurality of the physical blocks from the spare area to serve as substitute physical blocks and substituting the physical parts mapping the logical blocks in the data area with the physical parts of the substitute physical blocks when the host writes data to the logical blocks, wherein the upper physical parts of the substitute physical blocks are first utilized to be written with the data, and the lower physical parts of the substitute physical blocks are utilized to be written with the data after the upper physical parts of the substitute physical blocks are utilized; and moving valid data of at least one physical block in the data area to a new physical block selected from the spare area when the upper physical parts and the lower physical parts of all of the substitute physical blocks are utilized, wherein only one of the upper physical part and the lower physical part store valid data in the at least one physical block.