Patent ID: 7401167

Claim:
A disk array system connectable with an information processing device, said disk array system comprising: at least one group of a plurality of disk drives, the plurality of disk drives having biggest surfaces thereof alignably positioned against each other; at least one circuit board which includes a plurality of Port Bypass Circuits (PBCs) and is operatively connected to each of said plurality of disk drives via a corresponding data line laid in parallel with one another so as to form a data path connecting to each of the plurality of disk drives thereby serially transferring data to and from the group of disk drives therethrough, first and second disk adapters each adapted to be coupled to said information processing device so as to control transfer of data received from the coupled information processing device; and an expansion housing installed with a first set of disk drive units and a plurality of boards, each of the plurality boards including a port bypass circuit and being adapted to be coupled to said first and second disk adapters when installed in said disk array system, wherein the at least one circuit board is operatively positioned to face against one side surface of each of said plurality of disk drives so as to be equidistant from each of said plurality of disk drives, and each of said disk drive units includes a converter, a disk drive, and an interface accessible in accordance with a Serial ATA protocol, said converter executes conversion of protocols for transmitting data between a Fibre Channel protocol and the Serial ATA protocol, and said disk drive receives data via said converter and stores the received data.