A Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) controller comprises a RAID error correction code (ECC) encoder module that receives data for storage and that generates code words for data drives and one or more parity drives, which have physical locations. The code words are generated based on the data and a cyclic code generator polynomial. The logical locations correspond to index positions in the cyclic code generator polynomial. A mapping module maps the physical locations of the data and parity drives to the logical locations. When one of the data drives is removed, the mapping and RAID ECC encoder modules do not modify the map.