Patent ID: 7870427

Claim:
A method, comprising: managing, by a customer computer, a plurality of removable storages coupled to the customer computer at a customer site; interfacing, by the customer computer, with a service computer over a network to obtain replacement information indicating whether to replace at least one of the removable storages; gathering, by the customer computer, read/write error information for the at least one removable storage; transmitting, by the customer computer, the gathered read/write error information to the service computer; maintaining, by the service computer, error rate threshold information specific to different removable storage types provided from vendors that provide the removable storage types; determining, by the service computer, whether the gathered read/write error information satisfies the error rate threshold information specific to the removable storage type for which the read/write error information was gathered; sending, by the service computer, replacement instructions, indicating whether to replace the at least one removable storage based on the gathered read/write information transmitted to the service computer, in response to determining that the gathered read/write information does not satisfy the error rate threshold information; and receiving, by the customer computer, from the service computer the replacement instructions.