Storage system utilizing an active subset of drives during data storage and retrieval operations

Abstract

A storage system (14) that stores data from a host system (12) includes a plurality of disk drives (30), and a controller (32) that controls the disk drives (30). At least one of the disk drives (30) is in a stand-by mode and one of the disk drives (30) is in a write/read mode at approximately the same time. In one embodiment, the controller (32) directs data to a first subset (500) of disk drives (30) and a second subset (502) of disk drives (30) simultaneously. In this embodiment, at least one of the subsets (500)(502) can include five disk drives (30). Further, during a data transfer, one third of the disk drives (30) can be in the write/read mode while two-thirds of the disk drives (30) are in the stand-by mode.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.