Patent ID: 7631143
Filing Date: 2009-12-08
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A data storage system, comprising: a plurality of front-end controllers for interfacing the data storage system to host computers; a plurality of back-end controllers; a cache and interconnect block coupled between the front-end controllers and the back-end controllers, the cache and interconnect block including (1) a cache memory for temporarily storing data blocks being transferred between the data storage system and the host computer, and (2) interconnect circuitry operative to provide interconnections among the front-end controllers, the cache memory, and the back-end controllers; and a plurality of disk enclosures coupled to the back-end controllers, each disk enclosure including: wherein each back-end controller is a second controller coupled to the first controllers of a corresponding disk enclosure and operative to utilize the virtual disk drives of the corresponding disk enclosure to implement a set of storage volumes in a second RAID configuration such that each storage volume has a reliability measure greater than the respective reliability measures of the virtual disk drives of the corresponding disk enclosure.