Patent ID: 7330930

Claim:
A method for distributing read commands to multiple disk drives, comprising: receiving a read command from an operating system, the read command being directed to a starting logical block address; updating an extent of a logical block address range so as to include the starting logical block address; dividing the logical block address range into a number of portions of substantially equal size, wherein the number of portions of the logical block address range correspond to a number of mirrored physical disk drives available to service the received read command; assigning each of the number of mirrored physical disk drives to service a respective one of the number of portions of the logical block address range such that each mirrored physical disk drive is assigned to service a separate portion of the logical block address range; determining a particular portion of the logical block address range containing the starting logical block address; and executing the read command using the mirrored physical disk drive assigned to the particular portion of the logical block address range.