In a non-volatile memories formed according to a NAND type of architecture, one or more of the end word lines on the source end, drain end, or both are set aside as dummy word lines that are not used to store user data. In addition to the host data, a memory system typically also stores metadata, or information about the user data, how it is stored and the memory system itself. Techniques are presented for using the dummy word lines of the memory blocks to hold this metadata. This arrangement allows for the metadata of a memory block to be known in real time, without reducing the storage capacity of the memory system.