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US 8,949,503 B2Granted
Disk subsystem
AssigneeHitachi, Ltd.
InventorKazuhisa Aruga
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A protocol controller disposed between switches in a fiber channel fabric switch circuit and disk drive units for converting a protocol to enable one-to-one connectivity established between controllers and disk drive units.
Claims17
A storage system coupled to a plurality of disk drives by at least one of first paths, respectively, comprising:
- a plurality of disk controllers coupled to a network for receiving data from an information unit coupled to said network, said plurality of disk controllers implementing Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) processes on said plurality of disk drives;
- and
- a switch coupled to each of said disk controllers by at least one of second paths, respectively,
- wherein said switch is further coupled to each of said disk drives by one of said first paths, respectively, thereby forming a point-to-point connection between said each of said disk controllers and said each of said disk drives through said switch,
- wherein the number of said second paths is less than the number of said first paths,
- wherein said plurality disk drives store data sent from said information unit through said switch, and each of said plurality of disk drives is recognized by an identification (ID) number, and
- wherein said switch stores information of said ID numbers and conducts switching between said first and said second paths by transferring data to at least one disk drive among said plurality of disk drives by at least one of said first paths based on said information of said ID number of said at least one disk drive.
4 more elements
A switch coupled to a plurality of disk drives by at least one of first paths, respectively, and a plurality of disk controllers by at least one of second paths, respectively,
- wherein connections between said plurality of disk controllers and said plurality of disk drives are formed as point-to-point connections through the switch by using the first paths and the second paths;
- wherein said plurality of disk controllers implement Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) processes on said plurality of disk drives;
- wherein each disk drive is recognized by an identification (ID) number;
- and
- wherein said switch stores information of said ID numbers and conducts switching between said first and second paths by transferring data to at least one disk drive of said plurality of disk drives by at least one of said first paths based on said information of said ID number of said at least one disk drive.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.