Patent ID: 7603580

Claim:
A method for managing a storage system including a plurality of caches coupled to a plurality of disks, comprising: addressing data in a uniform, fine address pace of data tracks, the data tracks having respective data tack numbers; forming a mapping of the data tracks to the disks by hashing a modulus of the data track numbers; configuring a system manager of the storage system to comprise a first distributed management processing system and a second distributed management processing system sharing a first common system element, and a third distributed management processing system and a fourth distributed management processing system sharing a second common system element, each of the first, the second, the third, and the fourth distributed management processing systems being configured to perform an operator interaction with the storage system, the first and the second distributed management processing systems being configured to check each other for failure, and the third and the fourth distributed management processing systems being configured to check each other for failure; detecting, by the system manager, a failure in the first common system element; and remapping only the data tracks mapped to the first common system element to the third or the fourth distributed management processing system, using at least one of the first or the second management processing systems to perform the remapping, so as to update the mapping to an updated mapping.