Patent ID: 6988219

Claim:
A method for providing parity correction for a RAID array in a computer system after a system failure, including steps of: maintaining information identifying dirty stripes, said dirty stripes having possibly inconsistent parity; storing into non-volatile memory, from stripes to which data is going to be written, blocks of those stripes; after said system failure, identifying stripes in response to said information; and for each said stripe so identified, correcting said possibly inconsistent parity using said blocks stored into said non-volatile memory; wherein said step of correcting includes steps of reading data blocks of said each said stripe necessary to recomputed a correct parity for said stripe, recomputing said correct parity, and writing said correct parity to said stripe; and wherein said information includes a bitmap and including the further step of, when said bitmap is sufficiently full and after all pending writes are successfully completed, clearing said bitmap.