Patent ID: 7395369

Claim:
A method of storing a plurality of pieces of data among a plurality of data storage devices, the method comprising: calculating a cycle value for each data storage device, the cycle value being calculated as total data storage capacity of all data storage devices divided by data storage capacity of said each data storage device; selecting a data storage device for storing a current piece in a sequence of pieces that will be stored one after another, the selected data storage device having the smallest key value among the plurality of data storage devices, each data storage device having a key value to be used in said selecting; storing the current piece in the selected data storage device; determining a new key value for the selected data storage device based on at least (a) the cycle value of the selected data storage device and (b) a sequence number of the current piece, in said sequence; repeating said selecting for at least another piece in the sequence, based on the new key value; and storing said another piece in another data storage device selected by said repeating.