Patent ID: 7669032

Claim:
A system comprising: a host; two or more physical storage devices; and an off-host virtualizer; wherein the off-host virtualizer is configured to: aggregate storage within the two or more physical storage devices into a virtual storage device, wherein the two or more physical storage devices include a first and a second physical storage device; and provide control data for the virtual storage device to the host, wherein the control data identifies specific locations in the two or more physical storage devices that are mapped to logical blocks of the virtual storage device; wherein the host is configured to: in response to an I/O request targeted at the virtual storage device, determine that the I/O request requires access to the first physical storage device and the second physical storage device using the control data; partition the I/O request into a first physical I/O request targeted at the first physical storage device and a second physical I/O request targeted at the second physical storage device; and transmit the first physical I/O request and the second physical I/O request to the off-host virtualizer.