Patent ID: 6976116

Claim:
A storage system internally comprising: a plurality of disk drives corresponding to a plurality of fibre channel interface paths; a controller to be coupled to a network for controlling data transfer from/to a computer external of said storage system coupled to said network and controlling at least write and read requests of said disk drives; a network interface, included in said controller, for transferring data from/to said computer external of said storage system via said network; a disk drive interface, included in said controller, for transferring data sent from said computer external of said storage system to said disk drives and transferring data to be sent to said computer external of said storage system from said disk drives; a switch coupled to said disk drive interface by at least one of first paths, wherein said switch is further coupled to said disk drives by said fibre channel interface paths, wherein the number of said at least one of first paths is less than the number of said fibre channel interface paths, wherein said plurality of disk drives store data sent from said computer external of said storage system through said disk drive interface and said switch and each of said plurality of disk drives has an identification (ID) number, and wherein said switch establishes a switch connection between said disk drive interface and said disk drives by said fibre channel interface paths, and transfers data to a selected disk drive among said plurality of disk drives by one of said fibre channel interface paths based on information of said ID number of the selected disk drive to which data is to be written upon receiving said data from said disk drive interface.