Patent ID: 8234520

Claim:
A method, comprising: configuring, by a controller, a plurality of solid state disks as a redundant array of independent disks (RAID), wherein the plurality of solid state disks store a plurality of blocks, and wherein storage areas of the plurality of solid state disks corresponding to at least some blocks of the plurality of blocks have different amounts of estimated life expectancies; including, by the controller, in data structures associated with a block that is to be stored in the storage areas of the plurality of solid state disks, an indication that the block includes parity information corresponding to the RAID, wherein parity information comprises information corresponding to an error correction mechanism to protect against a disk failure; and sending, by the controller, the data structures to the plurality of solid state disks, wherein the plurality of solid state disks allocate a storage area that is estimated to have a relatively greater life expectancy in comparison to other storage areas to store the block that includes the parity information, wherein the block is a first block and the data structures are first data structures, wherein second data structures associated with a second block contain an indication of how many data drives are present in the RAID, and wherein the second block is stored in an area of greater life expectancy than a third block in response to determining that the second block is for a greater number of data drives than the third block.