Patent ID: 6925533

Claim:
A system for caching data received over a network connection comprising: a target device linked to a computing network and capable of receiving requests for routing data packetized for transport according to an Internet SCSI (iSCSI) transport protocol, said target device including an iSCSI drive for processing received SCSI commands; an initiator device linked to said computing network for generating said SCSI commands for transport according to said iSCSI protocol, said commands including a command to read data from or write data to storage devices associated with said iSCSI drive; and, a local disk at said initiator device for storing a copy of data read from or written to the storage devices associated with said iSCSI drive; and, mapping means for mapping addresses associated with data stored at storage devices associated with said iSCSI drive with local data storage units in said local disk, wherein said local disk provides seamless local caching of data at said initiator device corresponding to data at remote data storage devices associated with said iSCSI drive.