Patent ID: 7373442

Claim:
A method for using an expander on a backplane to interface storage units with an external device coupled to the expander, comprising the expander performing: communicating with one storage unit interfacing with a first physical interface, coupled to the expander, in a slot of a storage enclosure when the storage unit is received in a first orientation with respect to the slot; communicating with one storage unit interfacing with a second physical interface, coupled to the expander, in the slot when the storage unit is received in a second orientation with respect to the slot, wherein the first and second physical interface supports different storage interconnect architectures receiving a transmission from one storage unit in one slot coupled to the expander; maintaining information on storage interconnect architectures and transmission characteristics used for the storage interconnect architectures, wherein the storage interconnect architectures have transmission characteristics; determining the transmission characteristic of the received transmission; determining from the information the storage interconnect architecture associated with the determined transmission characteristics; using the information on the determined storage interconnect architecture to process the transmission and determine a transport layer for the received transmission, wherein there is one transport layer for each supported transport protocol; and forwarding the transmission to the determined transport layer.