Patent ID: 6957365

Claim:
A method for determining whether a disk drive is likely to fail, comprising: monitoring a first acoustic signal emitted from the disk drive during operation of the disk drive; comparing characteristics of the first acoustic signal against characteristics of a first baseline acoustic signal, wherein the first baseline acoustic signal reflects normal operation of the disk drive; and if the first acoustic signal differs by a predetermined amount from the first baseline acoustic signal, indicating that the disk drive is likely to fail; wherein the disk drive includes a linear array of disk drives; wherein receiving the first acoustic signal involves, receiving the first acoustic signal and a second acoustic signal from the linear array of disk drives; wherein the first acoustic signal and the second acoustic signal are gathered from acoustic sensors at different locations relative to the linear array of disk drives; wherein if the first acoustic signal and the second acoustic signal differ by the predetermined amount from the first baseline acoustic signal and a second baseline acoustic signal, the method further comprises, correlating the first acoustic signal with the second acoustic signal to determine which disk drive in the linear array is likely to fail, and indicating that the disk drive is likely to fail.