J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes:

to "write amplification". Write amplification refers to needing to

I suppose we're stuck with it now, but whoever invented that phrase
should be ...


Write amplification covers the situation where a portion of a block
needs to be copied to a new block, because the block erasure operation
would take out both unused space, and space that is still used.
It's effectively read-modify-write, but using a new block that may
have been erased when the drive was quiet. By keeping a pool of
erased blocks, you don't have to pay for the erasure delay
while a sustained copy is taking place. If you'd used up all the
erased blocks, then you'd have to erase some while attempting to
complete a transfer.

Paul