By placing an encryption function below a RAID function and requiring independence of encryption functionality along the same boundaries of data member independence of the RAID function, failures of the encryption and key management for individual encryption functions can be recovered with the same data rebuild mechanism as the RAID function. The received signal is zero-padded in the time domain to yield a zero-padded signal. Additional sensors arranged on the carrier plate include a rain sensor, a solar sensor as well as various light sensors, which preferably are arranged on receiving surfaces of the carrier plate.