Abstract: A system for managing I/O requests directed to a disk array comprises a processing unit, predetermined amounts of Random Access Memory (RAM) and Read-Only Memory (ROM), an operating system, a virtual disk driver, an input device, an output device, and a disk array. The virtual disk driver comprises a request modification memory, a pending queue, an active queue, a stripe buffer, a span buffer, and a parity buffer. The system breaks each I/O request received into one or more subrequests according to request type, request length and the storage capacity of a sector-row within the disk array. Subrequests are entered into a pending queue in first-in, first-out (FIFO) order. Subrequests within the pending queue corresponding to write operations directed to a common sector-row are merged into a corresponding array request. Each array request is stored in an active queue. Once the number of array requests exceeds a predetermined constant, each array request is issued to the RAID type disk array.