Patent ID: 8095763

Claim:
A method of reducing latency in read operations from an array of N disk storage channels, where N equals n data storage channels and n is greater than one, plus p parity storage channels and the p parity storage channels provide a fault tolerance for a loss of valid data from at least two of said N disk storage channels, the method comprising the steps of: a. sending read commands to said array of N disk storage channels, each read command being sent to all of the N disk storage channels simultaneously; b. performing a read operation for each read command from all of said array of N disk storage channels to provide requested data; c. identifying said read operation has completed on N−1 of said disk storage channels; d. determining integrity of data read from said N−1 disk storage channels; e. if said data read from said N−1 disk storage channels is valid, reconstructing data of a disk storage channel not having completed said read operation, and transferring said requested data to a processor requesting said requested data, and if said data read from said N−1 disk storage channels is invalid, waiting for all of the disk storage channels to then complete said read operation and determining integrity of data read from all said N disk storage channels; f. reconstructing data of any one disk storage channel found to be invalid from said determination of integrity of said data read from all said N disk channels; and g. repeating said steps (a)-(f) responsive to data from more than one disk channel being found to be invalid to correct for soft data errors.