Disclosed in some examples are methods, systems, devices, and machine-readable mediums that provide for techniques for scrambling and/or updating meta-data that enable an efficient internal copyback operation. In some examples, in order to update the meta-data, the meta-data and host-data are separated and the only the meta-data is sent to the controller to be updated during a modified internal copyback operation. The host-data is not transmitted to the controller. While sending the meta-data utilizes resources of the communication link between the memory dies and the controller, it uses much fewer resources than if the host-data were also transmitted.