Patent ID: 7779335

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a least one processor; a memory coupled with the at least one processor; and a program code residing in the memory and executed by the at least one processor, the program code configured to: check a plurality of bytes over a plurality of disks in a RAID-6 environment to ensure parity data is in sync, each such byte associated with a first parity value and a second parity value; identify each byte for which a first parity equation is not satisfied; for each identified byte, calculate a first error value using the first parity equation; for each identified byte, calculate a second error value using a second parity equation; and based on the first error value and the second error value for each identified byte, identify a faulty disk drive in the RAID-6 environment, wherein the program code is configured to identify the faulty disk drive by: for each of the plurality of bytes, determining as a first condition if the first error value and the second error value are either both non-zero or both zero; for each of the identified bytes, determining as a second condition if the first and second error values indicate a valid disk index within the RAID-6 environment; and for each of the identified bytes, determining as a third condition if the valid disk index is the same for all such bytes.