Patent ID: 8769191

Claim:
A garbage collection method of a nonvolatile memory device comprising a memory area including a plurality of free segments and first to fourth regions having a plurality of used segments, the method comprising: selecting a target segment from the plurality of used segments; moving a valid data block included in the selected target segment to the used segments included in one of the first to fourth regions; and erasing data of all data blocks included in the selected target segment and making the selected target segment into a free segment, wherein when the number of free segments included in the memory area is greater than a predefined value, the target segment is selected by a first method and valid data blocks included in the target segment are moved by a second method, and when the number of free segments included in the memory area is less than the predefined value, the target segment is selected by a third method different from the first method and valid data blocks included in the target segment are moved by a fourth method different from the second method.