Method for storing integrity metadata in redundant data layouts

摘要

A method for storing integrity metadata in a data storage system disk array. Integrity metadata is determined for each data stripe unit of a stripe in a disk array employing striped parity architecture. The number of physical sectors required to store the integrity metadata is determined. Sufficient data storage space, adjacent to the data stripe unit containing parity data for the stripe, is allocated for the storage of integrity metadata. The integrity metadata is stored next to the parity data. For one embodiment, a RAID 5 architecture is extended so that integrity metadata for each stripe is stored adjacent to the parity data for each stripe.