Consecutive scheduling of jobs for a device using run count values

A data storage device, comprising:

• at least one host adaptor that receives data to be stored in the storage device;
• and
• at least one disk adaptor coupled to the at least one host adaptor and to a plurality of physical disk drives that contain data, wherein the at least one disk adaptor includes a computer program product, in a computer readable storage medium, that schedules jobs for the plurality of disk drives and includes executable code that assigns a run count value to each of the disk drives, executable code that, for a particular one of the disk drives, schedules a number of consecutive jobs up to the run count value, and executable code that decrements the run count value according to the number of consecutive jobs scheduled, wherein the run count value is decremented linearly with each consecutive job scheduled, wherein the consecutive jobs include operations performed consecutively for a particular device without operations for other of the plurality of devices interleaved between the consecutive jobs, and wherein the run count value assigned to the particular device is independent of queue space of the particular device.