Patent ID: 8078918

Claim:
A storage subsystem, comprising: a solid-state, non-volatile memory array; a connector for attaching the storage subsystem to a host system; at least one sensor that collects data related to at least one type of environmental condition including one or more of conditions related to temperature, humidity, altitude, shock, and power; and a controller configured to write data to and read data from the non-volatile memory array in response to commands received from the host system, said controller configured to generate and store data on write operations, and to use error correction code (ECC) data to check for and correct errors on read operations; wherein the storage subsystem is configured to: maintain statistical data, based at least in part on the ECC data, that is reflective of a rate at which errors are detected on said read operations, and event timestamp data that is correlated to the statistical data; when the rate at which said errors are detected exceeds a threshold during a time period in which a write operation is performed, store condition data reflective of a condition of the storage subsystem with data written by the write operation; and provide said statistical data, said data collected by the at least one sensor, said condition data, and said event timestamp data to the host system via said connector, the storage subsystem thereby enabling the host system to monitor a health of the storage subsystem and to use the event timestamp data and the condition data to correlate an increased rate of errors with an environmental condition observed by the at least one sensor.