Patent ID: 7853741
Filing Date: 2010-12-14
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for enabling Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) disk drives to be utilized in Fibre Channel (FC) Storage Area Networks (SANs), comprising: at an initiator side of a FC link, integrating a translation module and a SATA encapsulation and/or de-capsulation module in a controller, the translation module configured for translating Small Computer System Interconnect (SCSI) commands to SATA Frame Information Structures (FISs) and the SATA encapsulation and/or de-capsulation module configured for encapsulating the SATA FISs into FC frames for commands being sent to the SATA disk drives, wherein the controller is configured to, for all FC frames received from the FC link, distinguish the FC frames that contain SCSI commands from the FC frames that encapsulate SATA FISs, the controller further configured for de-encapsulating the SATA FISs from the FC frames that encapsulate SATA FISs and translating the SATA FISs to SCSI commands for commands being received from the SATA disk drives, and performing low-level FC protocol handling for the FC frames that contain SCSI commands; and at a target side of the FC link, integrating another SATA encapsulation and/or de-capsulation module in a switch, wherein the switch is configured to, for all FC frames received from the FC link, distinguish the FC frames that contain SCSI commands from the FC frames that encapsulate SATA FISs, the switch further configured for de-encapsulating the FC frames that encapsulate SATA FISs to retrieve the SATA FISs and sending the SATA FISs to the SATA disk drives for commands being sent to the SATA disk drives, and performing low-level FC protocol handling for the FC frames that contain SCSI commands, and wherein the switch is further configured for receiving the SATA FISs from the SATA disk drives and encapsulating the SATA FISs into FC frames for commands being sent from the SATA disk drives.