The present invention presents a non-volatile memory system that adapts its performance to one or more system related situation. If a situation occurs where the memory will require more than the allotted time for completing an operation, the memory can switch from its normal operating mode to a high performance mode in order to complete the operation quickly enough. Conversely, if a situation arises where reliability could be an issue (such as partial page programming), the controller could switch to a high reliability mode. In either case, once the trigging system situation has returned to normal, the memory reverts to the normal operation. The detection of such situations can be used both for programming and data relocation operations. An exemplary embodiment is based on firmware programmable performance.