Patent ID: 6883063

Claim:
A storage system for use in a computer system including a host computer, the storage system comprising: at least one storage device having a plurality of user-accessible storage locations, the at least one storage device including at least one disk drive; a cache memory; and at least one controller, coupled to the cache memory and the at least one storage device, that controls access to the at least one storage device from the host computer, so that the at least one storage device is accessible to the host computer only via the at least one controller, the at least one controller being capable of generating data that is independent of any data passed from the host computer to the storage system and writing at least some of the generated data to at least two non-contiguous user-accessible storage locations on the at least one storage device in response to a communication from the host computer that does not include the at least some of the generated data to be written to the at least two non-contiguous user-accessible storage locations, without writing any of the generated data to at least one user-accessible storage location disposed between the at least two non-contiguous storage locations so that any data in the at least one user-accessible storage location is preserved, and wherein the at least one controller is configured to write at least some of the generated data to the cache memory.