Heuristic Approach for Faster Consistency Check in a Redundant Storage System

An apparatus for reducing an amount of time required for performing consistency checking in a redundant storage system including a primary drive and at least one redundant drive, the apparatus comprising:

• an information repository associated with each of the primary drive and the at least one redundant drive, the information repository being operative to store information relating to input/output failures on the primary drive and the at least one redundant drive;
• a monitoring module operative to determine a likelihood that one or more regions of at least one of the primary drive and the at least one redundant drive contains inconsistent data as a function of the information stored in the information repository;
• and
• a control module operative to perform consistency checking on the one or more regions of at least one of the primary drive and the at least one redundant drive determined to have at least the prescribed likelihood of containing inconsistent data to thereby reduce the amount of time required for performing consistency checking.

A redundant storage system, comprising:

• a primary drive;
• at least one redundant drive, the at least one redundant drive being configured to mirror data stored on the primary drive;
• an information repository associated with each of the primary drive and the at least one redundant drive, the information repository being operative to store information relating to input/output failures on the primary drive and at least one redundant drive;
• a monitoring module operative to determine a likelihood that one or more regions of at least one of the primary drive and the at least one redundant drive contains inconsistent data as a function of the information stored in the information repository;
• and
• a control module operative to perform consistency checking on the one or more regions of at least one of the primary drive and the at least one redundant drive determined to have at least a prescribed likelihood of containing inconsistent data to thereby reduce the amount of time required for performing consistency checking.