Abstract: A solid state drive (SSD) and a method for writing user data and system data is disclosed. In one embodiment, the SSD includes a memory controller, a host interface communicatively coupled to the memory controller, and one or more NAND flash memory devices communicatively coupled to the memory controller. The memory controller is configured to write both a user data received via the host interface and a system data generated by the memory controller to one or more blocks of the NAND flash memory devices such that the one or more blocks contain both user data and system data. In one embodiment, the memory controller is figured to divide the system data into one or more segments having a uniform size, and append a header to each segment of system data before writing the system data to the one or more blocks of the NAND flash memory devices.