A method and apparatus for leveraging spare disks in a data storage system.
Specifically the present invention describes a method for data recovery
and redundancy in a data storage system having a plurality of disk drives.
The data storage system is grouped into a plurality of arrays having data
redundancy. The plurality of arrays is arranged in an optimum combination
of arrays of mirrored pairs of disk drives, arrays of three disk drives in
a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) configuration, and arrays of
more than three disk drives in a RAID configuration to maximize
performance while providing data redundancy. For every failure of one of
said plurality of arrays due to a failed disk drive, a new array having
data redundancy in a RAID configuration is dynamically created in said
plurality of arrays. The new array is optimized for best performance and
contains information from the failed disk drive.
