US Patent 11768763 Flash secure erase

A system with storage memory and a processing device has a logical deletion to physical erasure time bound. The system dereferences data, responsive to a direction to delete the data. The system monitors physical blocks in storage memory for live data and the dereferenced data. The system cooperates garbage collection with monitoring the physical blocks, so that at least a physical block having the dereferenced data is garbage collected and erased within a logical deletion to physical erasure time bound.