Patent ID: 7062704

Claim:
A storage system comprising: a storage array controller; and a storage array coupled to the storage array controller and comprising: a plurality of disk drives; and a plurality of disk drive controllers, wherein each disk drive controller is configured to control one or more of the disk drives; wherein the storage array controller is configured to control accesses to data within the storage array; wherein the storage array controller is further configured to issue a first scrubbing operation command to a first disk drive controller; wherein the first disk drive controller is configured to receive the first scrubbing operation command from the storage array controller and, in response to receiving the first scrubbing operation command, to read data from within a data range from at least one of the disk drives, to calculate a new checksum for the data, and to compare the new checksum to a preexisting checksum for the data; and wherein if the new checksum differs from the preexisting checksum, the first disk drive controller is further configured to respond to the first scrubbing operation command by indicating that the data within the data range is erroneous.