A controller capable of automatically initiating operations in a computer system comprising a host system, the controller, and a plurality of physical devices; the controller comprising: firmware; a hardware engine for receiving host commands from the host system to perform a received read-from or a write-to request at a physical device of the plurality of physical devices, wherein the hardware engine is inline with an interface to the host system and an interface to the plurality of physical devices; said hardware engine associated with registers for each host resource which directly link each host resource to an associated physical device and which provide routing information to get to the associated physical device; said hardware engine for assessing, without firmware involvement, a received host command, the host command comprising a first host resource linked to a first associated physical device, to determine if the host command can be started without firmware involvement, by checking the registers for the first host resource to determine if automatically initiated operations are allowed, responsive to automatically initiated operations being allowed, said hardware engine for interrogating, without firmware involvement, the received host command to check if automatically initiating operations are supported; responsive to automatically initiating operations being supported, said hardware engine for building, without firmware involvement, a chain of hardware command blocks to perform the received host command; responsive to automatically initiated operations not being allowed or not being supported, the controller operable for placing the received command on an event queue of the controller, and for the firmware to process the event queue; said hardware engine for executing the chain of hardware command blocks for the received host command; and responsive to the executing of the chain, the firmware being configured to process completion. firmware; a hardware engine for receiving host commands from the host system to perform a received read-from or a write-to request at a physical device of the plurality of physical devices, wherein the hardware engine is inline with an interface to the host system and an interface to the plurality of physical devices; said hardware engine associated with registers for each host resource which directly link each host resource to an associated physical device and which provide routing information to get to the associated physical device; said hardware engine for assessing, without firmware involvement, a received host command, the host command comprising a first host resource linked to a first associated physical device, to determine if the host command can be started without firmware involvement, by checking the registers for the first host resource to determine if automatically initiated operations are allowed, responsive to automatically initiated operations being allowed, said hardware engine for interrogating, without firmware involvement, the received host command to check if automatically initiating operations are supported; responsive to automatically initiating operations being supported, said hardware engine for building, without firmware involvement, a chain of hardware command blocks to perform the received host command; responsive to automatically initiated operations not being allowed or not being supported, the controller operable for placing the received command on an event queue of the controller, and for the firmware to process the event queue; said hardware engine for executing the chain of hardware command blocks for the received host command; and responsive to the executing of the chain, the firmware being configured to process completion.