Patent ID: 8427771

Claim:
A hybrid drive comprising: a disk comprising a plurality of data sectors; a head actuated over the disk; a non-volatile semiconductor memory (NVSM) comprising a plurality of memory segments; and control circuitry operable to: receive a read command from a host to read first data from a first data sector; read the first data from the first data sector during a first read operation and determine whether the first data sector is suspect; and when the first data sector is suspect, write the first data to a first memory segment of the NVSM and mark the first data sector as suspect, wherein after writing the first data to the NVSM the control circuitry is further operable to: read the first data from the first data sector during a second read operation and determine whether the first data sector is still suspect; and when the first data sector is no longer suspect, mark the first data sector as non-suspect and mark the first segment of the NVSM as erasable.