Patent ID: 8074108

Claim:
A storage controller, comprising: a chassis; a plurality of storage devices disposed in said chassis; a controller for controlling the input and output of data between a host system and each of said storage devices; a peripheral device for supplying power to said controller; and a plurality of repair slots, to which a plurality of repair disk drives is inserted when any one of said plurality of storage devices fails, wherein, when any one of said plurality of storage devices fails, the controller determines whether the repair slots are empty, wherein when the controller determines that the repair slots are empty, an indication is provided to prompt insertion of a repair disk drive into one of the repair slots wherein when the repair disk drive is inserted in the one repair slot, the controller recognizes the inserted repair disk drive as a spare disk drive, configures the storage devices and the repair disk drive as a RAID configuration, and reproduces and stores data of the failed storage device among said plurality of storage devices or said repair disk drive according to the RAID configuration, wherein when the repair slots are not empty and the number of failed storage devices is greater by one than the number of repair slots, the controller provides an indication that redundancy can no longer be maintained with the repair slots, and wherein when the repair slots are not empty and the number of failed storage devices is greater by two or more than the number of the repair slots, the controller stops the system.