Patent ID: 7908526

Claim:
A method for preventing disk drive failures, the method comprising; monitoring factors relating to errors associated with a particular disk drive in the plurality of disk drives; determining a first change between a second value of at least one factor and a first value of the at least one factor, the first value being a difference between a first measurement and a subsequent second measurement of the at least one factor, the second value being a difference between the second measurement and a subsequent third measurement of the at least one factor; determining whether the first change of the at least one factor indicates a threshold increase; determining a second change between a subsequent third value of the at least one factor and the second value of the at least one factor in response to the first change of the at least one factor indicating the threshold increase, the third value being a difference between the third measurement and a subsequent fourth measurement of the at least one factor; determining whether the second change of the at least one factor indicates the threshold increase; and indicating that the particular disk drive should be replaced in response to the second change of the at least one factor indicating the threshold increase.