Patent ID: 7546413
Filing Date: 2009-06-09
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of operating a storage system having a plurality of disk controllers, each having a Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface (SAS) port which can be attached to either a SAS disk drive or a Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) disk drive, the method comprising: receiving, by a disk management program at the storage system, a first request from a management console, said first request requesting information as to what kinds of disk drives are attached to said disk controllers; sending, by the disk management program, a second request to said disk controllers to retrieve detailed information of any disk drives attached to said disk controllers; retrieving by the disk controllers the detailed information of each attached disk drive using a protocol appropriate for the disk drive; storing said detailed information to a disk management table in a memory unit in said storage system, wherein said disk management table includes a plurality of entries, each having an identification (ID) number of each disk controller, a status of the SAS port in said disk controller to which a disk drive is attached, a sector size, a number of sectors, a serial number of the disk drive, and a number of errors which may have occurred when data is read from or written to the disk drive; and sending, by the disk management program in response to the first request, the information contained in the disk management table back to the management console.