Patent ID: 8713253

Claim:
A disk drive brick in a data management system comprising first and second base stations, wherein each of the first and second base station comprises a first electrical connector configured to electrically couple the base station to the brick, a disk drive array controller, and a power controller for controlling power to the brick, the disk drive brick comprising: a frame; a disk drive array held in the frame, the disk drive array comprising a plurality of disk drives; and a backplane coupled to the disk drive array, wherein the backplane comprises: a non-volatile memory device configured to store configuration data concerning the brick and information concerning each of the disk drives of the disk drive array; and a second electrical connector configured to electrically couple the brick to the first base station or the second base station, wherein the brick is configured to be removed from the first base station and physically mounted to the second base station, wherein, in response to mounting the brick to the second base station after being removed from the first base station, the disk drive array controller in the second base station is configured to query the brick to retrieve the configuration data stored in the non-volatile memory of the brick and automatically reconfigure the disk drive array controller based on the retrieved configuration data, and wherein the first electrical connector in the second base station is configured to provide power and disk drive array interface signals to the second electrical connector in the brick when the brick is physically mounted to the second base station.