Patent ID: 7103732

Claim:
A method for initializing an erase count block in a system memory of a non-volatile memory system, the non-volatile memory system including a non-volatile memory arranged as a plurality of blocks, and also including the system memory, the method comprising: allocating a plurality of pages within the system memory, wherein each of the plurality of pages comprises a plurality of entries, each entry of the plurality of entries being associated with a corresponding block of the plurality of blocks in the non-volatile memory; examining the plurality of blocks to identify-usable blocks that may be written to or read from, and to identify unusable blocks; for each of the identified usable blocks, storing, in the associated entry of the plurality of entries for that block, a value indicating a number of times that the identified usable block has been erased; for each of the identified unusable blocks, storing, in the associated entry of the plurality of entries for that block, an indicator indicating that the identified unusable block is unusable; allocating a header within the system memory, the header being associated with the plurality of pages; and storing a second value in the header, wherein the second value is arranged to indicate an average number of times each usable block of the plurality of blocks has been erased.