Patent ID: 7437604

Claim:
A network storage appliance, comprising: a chassis, enclosing a storage controller and first and second servers; said storage controller, having first and second I/O ports for coupling to first and second I/O links, said storage controller configured to control a plurality of physical disk drives and to present said plurality of physical disk drives as one or more logical disk drives on said first and second I/O links; said first and second servers, each having an I/O port for coupling to a respective one of said first and second I/O links, each of said servers configured to transmit packets to said storage controller over said respective I/O link, said packets including block-level protocol disk commands each identifying one of said logical disk drives; a backplane, enclosed in said chassis, having a local bus; a first blade, enclosed in said chassis and coupled to said backplane, comprising said first server, a first portion of said storage controller, and said first I/O link coupling said first server to said first portion of said storage controller; a second blade, enclosed in said chassis and coupled to said backplane, comprising said second server, a second portion of said storage controller, and said second I/O link coupling said second server to said second portion of said storage controller; a third blade, enclosed in said chassis and coupled to said backplane, comprising a third portion of said storage controller; wherein said third portion of said storage controller transfers data to said first and second portions of said storage controller via said local bus, wherein said data is provided by said physical disk drives to said storage controller; and wherein said first and second portions of said storage controller transfer said data received from said third portion of said storage controller to said respective first and second servers via said respective first and second I/O links.