Patent ID: 8452899

Claim:
A method for distributing data among a plurality of storage devices, comprising: assigning a first identifier to a first storage device; assigning a second identifier to a second storage device; assigning a third identifier to a third storage device; assigning a fourth identifier to a fourth storage device; randomly distributing a plurality of logical addresses among the first storage device, the second storage device, the third storage device, and the fourth storage device in an initial distribution to provide balanced access to each of the storage devices; transferring the data to the first storage device, the second storage device, the third storage device, and the fourth storage device in accordance with the initial distribution; removing the second storage device; randomly assigning the first identifier, the third identifier, or the fourth identifier to each of the logical addresses in the second storage device in a second distribution; transferring data in the logical addresses in the second storage device to the first storage device, the third storage device, or the fourth storage device in accordance with the random assignment in the second distribution; randomly assigning the first identifier, the second identifier, or the third identifier to each of the plurality of logical addresses in the first storage device, the third storage device, or the fourth storage device in a third distribution; and transferring a copy of the data in the logical addresses in the first storage device, the third storage device, or the fourth storage device in accordance with the random assignment in the third distribution such that the data and the copy are stored on different storage devices, wherein: a storage device storing the data in accordance with the initial distribution and the second distribution is functioning and available, but is treated as unavailable when randomly assigning the first identifier, the third identifier, or the fourth identifier to each of the plurality of logical addresses in the third distribution for each respective copy of the data, and the storage device is treated as available after randomly assigning the first identifier, the third identifier, or the fourth identifier in the third distribution.