Patent ID: RE40877

Claim:
A method for communicating data in a data storage system, the data storage system comprising a plurality of interconnected nodes, each node having a respective cache memory comprising a plurality of cache lines, each cache line having the same predetermined size, the method comprising: providing new data for writing into a portion of a particular cache line in a memory region of a cache memory located at a local node, wherein data written to the memory region are mirrored to at least another memory region in at least another cache memory located at a remote node; reading out existing data from the particular cache line in the memory region of the cache memory located at the local node; merging the new data with the existing data; writing the merged data into the particular cache line in the memory region of the cache memory at the local node; and transferring the merged data over a communication link to the remote node for writing into said another memory region in said another cache memory located at the remote node.