Patent ID: 6886074

Claim:
A method for distributing read commands to disks associated with a redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) mirroring system, comprising: establishing a first and second counter, the first counter associated with a first disk drive, the second counter associated with a second disk drive; receiving a command from an operating system; determining if the received command is a read command; examining the first and second counters if the received command is the read command, the examining including, determining which of the first and second counters is a lower value counter or if the first and second counters are of equal value; selecting a drive associated with the lower value counter or if the counters are of equal value selecting a first drive; incrementing the lower value counter or the first counter if counters are of equal value; and directing the read command to the drive associated with the lower value counter or the first drive if the counters are of equal value.