Patent attributes
A system and method for dynamic data recovery is described. The system and method for dynamic data recovery operates on a computer storage system that includes a plurality of disk drives for storing parity groups. Each parity group includes storage blocks. Each of the storage blocks is stored on a separate disk drive such that no two storage blocks from a given parity set reside on the same disk drive. The computer storage system further includes a recovery module to dynamically recover data that is lost when at least a portion of one disk drive in the plurality of disk drives becomes unavailable. The recovery module is configured to produce a reconstructed block by using information in the remaining storage blocks of a parity set that corresponds to an unavailable storage block. The recovery module is further configured to split the parity group corresponding to an unavailable storage block into two parity groups if the parity group corresponding to the unavailable storage block spanned all of the drives in the plurality of disk drives.