Video storage

A video data storage system comprising:

• storage devices for storing respective portions of a video data signal and redundancy data derived from the respective portions of the video data signal;
• and
• a processing system configured to maintain normal on-line operation of said data storage system wherein a transfer rate of the video data signal is maintained at a normal transfer rate when one of said storage devices storing a portion of the video data signal becomes non-operational by regenerating video data stored on the non-operational storage device using the redundancy data,
• said processing system being further configured to write the regenerated video data to an operational storage device while the normal transfer rate during on-line operation of said data storage system is maintained, wherein the portion of the video data signal stored on the non-operational storage device is at least partly healed while the normal on-line operation of said data storage system is maintained, and wherein the processing system writes the regenerated video data to the operational storage device using bandwidth normally allocated during on-line operation for reading video data from the storage device that has become non-operational.

A method of operating a data storage system comprising storage devices, the method comprising:

• storing on said storage devices respective portions of a video data signal and redundancy data derived from the respective portions of the video data signal;
• maintaining a normal transfer rate of the video data signal during on-line operation of said data storage system when one of said storage devices storing a portion of the video data signal becomes non-operational by regenerating video data stored on the non-operational storage device using the redundancy data;
• and
• writing the regenerated video data to an operational storage device while the normal transfer rate during on-line operation of said data storage system is maintained, whereby the portion of the video data signal stored on the non-operational storage device is at least partly healed while the on-line operation of said data storage system is maintained, and wherein the regenerated video data is written to the operational storage device using bandwidth normally allocated during on-line operation for reading data from a storage device that has become non-operational.