FLASH-MEMORY SYSTEM WITH ENHANCED SMART-STORAGE SWITCH AND PACKED META-DATA CACHE FOR MITIGATING WRITE AMPLIFICATION BY DELAYING AND MERGING WRITES UNTIL A HOST READ

A flash memory solid-state-drive (SSD) has a smart storage switch that reduces write acceleration that occurs when more data is written to flash memory than is received from the host. Page mapping rather than block mapping reduces write acceleration. Host commands are loaded into a Logical-Block-Address (LBA) range FIFO. Entries are sub-divided and portions invalidated when a new command overlaps an older command in the FIFO. Host data is aligned to page boundaries with pre- and post-fetched data filling in to the boundaries. Repeated data patterns are detected and encoded by compressed meta-data codes that are stored in meta-pattern entries in a meta-pattern cache of a meta-pattern flash block. The sector data is not written to flash. The meta-pattern entries are located using a meta-data mapping table. Storing host CRC's for comparison to incoming host data can detect identical data writes that can be skipped, avoiding a write to flash.