A system and method for updating the firmware of storage drive in a drive array is disclosed. The method includes the steps of updating the firmware of a spare drive. The spare drive is swapped for a drive of the drive array having unupdated firmware. The content of the spare drive is built on the basis of the content of the other storage drives of the storage arrays and according to the data recovery scheme of the drive array. The firmware of the selected storage array is updated and the updated storage drive is swapped with the spare storage drive in the drive array. The content of the updated storage array is then rebuilt or restored.