Patent ID: 7350101

Claim:
A method in a data processing system comprising: writing a first superblock to a redundant array of storage devices, wherein the storage devices include storage media, and wherein the first superblock includes a first plurality of data blocks and a first plurality of error correction blocks, each of the first plurality of error correction blocks containing error correction information; detecting a failure in a particular storage device in the redundant array of storage devices; in response to detecting the failure, writing a second superblock to the redundant array of storage devices, wherein the second superblock includes a second plurality of data blocks and a second plurality of error correction blocks, wherein a combined cardinality of the second plurality of data blocks and the second plurality of error correction blocks is less than a combined cardinality of the first plurality of data blocks and the first plurality of error correction blocks; detecting completion of writing to the redundant array of storage devices; and in response to detecting the completion of writing to the redundant array of storage devices, writing at least one additional block corresponding to the second superblock to at least one replacement storage device.