A system and method for managing garbage collection in Solid State Drives (SSDs) in a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) configuration, using a RAID controller is described. A control logic can control read and write requests for the SSDs in the RAID configuration. A selection logic can select an SSD for garbage collection. Setup logic can instruct the selected SSD to enter a garbage collection setup phase. An execute logic can instruct the selected SSD to enter and exit the garbage collection execute phase.