Patent ID: 7523272

Claim:
A method for correlating a storage enclosure with storage drives of the storage enclosure, comprising the steps of: saving to a storage location an identifier associated with an enclosure interface controller, wherein the storage location is accessible by each expander; issuing a command to cause the identifier to be retrieved from the storage location, wherein the step of issuing a command to cause the identifier to be retrieved from the storage location further comprises the step of issuing a command to an expander to cause the expander to retrieve the identifier from the storage location, and wherein the step of issuing a command to the expander to cause the expander to retrieve the identifier from the storage location further comprises the step of populating an unused location on a data structure associated with an existing data management command; identifying the expander based, at least in part, on the identifier; issuing a command to associate the expander with the storage enclosure; and issuing a command to associate the expander with the drives in communication with the expander.