An electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM) emulation (EEE) system includes a non-volatile memory arranged to have a plurality of sectors in which each sector is arranged to have a plurality of record locations. A new record of new data is programmed into a record location of an active sector of the plurality of sectors. After successfully completing the programming of the new record, a number of failure-to-program (FTP) occurrences during the programming is compared to a first threshold. When the number of FTP occurrences is greater than the first threshold, a determination is made as to whether compression is needed, and in response to determining that compression is needed, the method includes selectively performing compression based on a second threshold.