Raid system performance enhancement using compressed data

A storage system, comprising:

• a set of one or more RAID storage devices;
• a storage controller having a processor and a memory, the memory having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by the processor to cause the storage controller to:
• receive, from a computing system, a first data block to write to the storage system;
• compress the received first data block to generate a second data block, the second data block including the first data block in compressed form and a data value, the data value indicating that the second data block is compressed;
• store the second data block to memory;
• and
• retrieve the second data block from memory and executing a set of RAID operations to write the second data block to the RAID storage devices, the set of operations to:
• generate, based on the second data block, redundant data for performing at least one of an error detection and an error correction operation on the second data block;
• write the second data block to the RAID storage devices;
• and
• write the redundant data block to the RAID storage devices.

A computer program product for operating a storage system having memory and RAID storage devices, the computer program product including a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, wherein the computer readable storage medium is not a transitory signal per se, the program instructions executable by a processing circuit to cause the processing circuit to perform a method comprising:

• receiving, from a computing system, a first data block to write to the storage system;
• compressing the received first data block to generate a second data block, the second data block including the first data block in compressed form and a data value, the data value indicating that the second data block is compressed;
• storing the second data block to memory;
• and
• retrieving the second data block from memory and executing a set of RAID operations to write the second data block to the RAID storage devices, the set of operations including:
• generating, based on the second data block, redundant data for performing at least one of an error detection and an error correction operation on the second data block;
• writing the second data block to the RAID storage devices;
• and
• writing the redundant data block to the RAID storage devices.