Patent ID: 8255607

Claim:
A method of bridging between Serial ATA (SATA) and Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface (SAS) protocols in a computer storage network comprising at least an expander that includes multiple Phys indicative of multiple ports, said storage network further comprising a plurality of SAS devices and/or SATA devices directly attached to said expander, said method comprising: creating a bridge capable of performing translations between SAS and SATA protocols, said bridge embedded in or coupled to said expander through two or more Phys amongst said multiple Phys of said expander, said two or more Phys comprising at least an ingress Phy and an egress Phy attached to said bridge; and routing a SAS initiator request to said bridge based on a routing table in said expander before said initiator request is translated at said bridge and further routed from said bridge to a destination SATA device attached to said expander, wherein said routing table includes public addresses of said SAS and SATA devices and corresponding Phys through which said SAS and SATA devices are attached to said expander, wherein said SAS initiator request indicates a destination address that corresponds to said ingress Phy of said bridge according to said routing table, and wherein said SATA devices including said destination SATA device are virtualized as Serial SCSI Protocol (SSP) targets during a SAS discovery process.