Patent ID: 7783802

Claim:
A switch employed in a system having two hosts in communication with a hard disk drive through the switch and for coupling two or more host ports of the hosts to the hard disk drive comprising: A power control circuit generating a power signal for use by the hard disk drive in receiving power for operability thereto, the power control circuit being responsive to detection of inoperability of the hard disk drive and in response thereto, toggling the power signal to the hard disk drive while avoiding interruption to the system, during the toggling of the power signal, the switch operative to use a sequence of COMRESET bursts to turn power “off” and another sequence of COMMREST bursts to turn power “on”, the sequence and another sequence not occurring during operation of the of the hard disk drive, the sequence and another sequence using two back to back port select out of band (PS OOB) sequences with two delays between the two PS OOB, wherein if the delay is between a first range then the sequence is designated to turn “off” power and if the delay is between a second range the sequence is designated to turn power “on”.