Patent 7761660 was granted and assigned to NetApp on July, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A system and method for monitoring a group of storage devices for indications of a detected error. After receiving an indication that a first storage device in the group has experienced a detected error, a consecutive number of detected errors experienced by the first storage device is determined. If it is determined the consecutive number of detected errors experienced by the first storage device exceeds a threshold of more than one detected error before a second storage device in the group experiences one detected error, then in response, the consecutive number of detected errors experienced by the first storage device is reset. If the consecutive number of detected errors does exceed the threshold before the second storage device experiences the one detected error, then the first storage device is identified as a suspect storage device.