IBM Patent on SSD

IBM Corp. has received an United States patent application number 20110099320: Solid State Drive with Adjustable Drive Life and Capacity signed by inventors: Lucas, Gregg S. (Tucson, AZ); Tressler, Gary A. (Poughkeepsie, NY); and Vanstee, Dustin J. (Poughkeespie, NY).

Abstract
A method for adjusting a drive life and a capacity of a solid state drive, the SSD comprising a plurality of memory devices includes determining a desired drive life for the SSD; determining a utilization for the SSD; and allocating a portion of the plurality of memory devices as available memory and a portion of the plurality of memory devices as spare memory based on the desired drive life and the utilization. An SSD with an adjustable drive life and capacity includes a plurality of memory devices; and a memory allocation module configured to: determine a desired drive life for the SSD; determine a utilization for the SSD; and allocate a portion of the plurality of memory devices as available memory and a portion of the plurality of memory devices as spare memory based on the desired drive life and the utilization.