A system for data storage includes one or more non-volatile memory (NVM) devices, each device including multiple memory blocks, and a processor. The processor is configured to assign the memory blocks into groups, to apply a redundant data storage scheme in each of the groups, to identify a group of the memory blocks including at least one bad block that renders remaining memory blocks in the group orphan blocks, to select a type of data suitable for storage in the orphan blocks, and to store the data of the identified type in the orphan blocks.