Patent ID: 7451341

Claim:
A storage system comprising: a plurality of host devices; a storage device connectable respectively to the host devices by means of a plurality of communications paths; a communications status monitoring section which respectively monitors communications statuses between each of said host devices and said storage device; a failure detecting section which detects whether or not each of a plurality types of prescribed temporary failures, each of which is able to be corrected without switching communications paths, has occurred, on the basis of at least said respective communications statuses detected by said communications status monitoring section, different threshold values of 2 or more being set for said different types of temporary failures respectively; a switching instruction section which does not output a switching request signal for requesting switching from a failed communications path to a to-be-used communications path before a number of occurrence of at least one type of said prescribed temporary failure detected by said failure detecting section reaches a respective threshold value, and outputs said switching request signal only when and as soon as determining said number of occurrence of said at least one type of said prescribed temporary failure reaches said respective threshold value; and a path control section which selects the to-be-used communications path, on the basis of said switching request signal from said switching instruction section.