Patent ID: 8756369

Claim:
A storage system comprising: a plurality of storage devices comprising a first storage device and a second storage device, wherein the first and second storage devices are different types of storage devices, each of the storage devices of the plurality of storage devices corresponding to a respective process queue; a command sorter receiving storage commands and placing the storage commands into a plurality of ready queues, the plurality of ready queues including a first ready queue corresponding to a type of storage device of the first storage device and a second ready queue corresponding to a type of storage device of the second storage device, the command sorter placing the storage commands into the plurality of ready queues by determining a target storage device for a given command; and a command scheduler taking the storage commands from the ready queues and placing the storage commands into a command processor, the command scheduler placing a particular storage command from its respective ready queue into the command processor based on an availability level of a process queue corresponding to a target device of the particular command; the command processor giving the storage commands to the process queues.