Embodiments of the present disclosure provides a memory-efficient mechanism for identifying memory blocks with a low wear count. More particularly, embodiments of the present disclosure provides a mechanism for identifying a memory block whose wear count is within the bottom p % of all wear counts associated with memory blocks in a storage system. If a memory controller always performs the garbage collection operation on a memory block whose wear count is within the bottom p % of all wear counts, then the memory controller is expected to utilize the remaining memory blocks (e.g., memory blocks whose wear count is within the upper (100−p) % of all wear counts) efficiently and level the wear count of at least the remaining memory blocks.