Systems and methods that facilitate bad block management in a memory device that comprises nonvolatile memory are presented. One or more memory blocks of a memory device are each associated with one or more additional, dedicated bits that facilitate indicating whether the associated memory block is defective. These additional bits, called bad block bits, can be stored in a hardware-based storage mechanism within the memory device. Once a defect is detected in a memory block, at least one of the associated bad block bits can be set to indicate that the memory block is defective. If at least one of the bad block bits associated with a memory block indicates a memory block is defective, access to the memory block can be prevented.