Patent ID: 7167960

Claim:
A storage system comprising: a first interface configured to receive block-level I/O requests; a second interface configured for file-level I/O; a third interface configured for communication with another storage controller; and a data communication path suitable for data communication with a physical storage in order to exchange data with the physical storage in response to the block-level I/O request and the file-level I/O requests, wherein the block-level I/O requests are serviced by exchanging data with a first storage area of the physical storage and the file-level I/O requests are serviced by exchanging data with a second storage area of the physical storage, wherein the first storage area is accessed as a first logical volume and the second storage area is accessed as a second logical volume, wherein the first logical volume and the second logical volume define a consistency group, wherein data contained in the first logical volume and in the second logical volume can be communicated to the other storage controller in order to replicate the data to secondary storage accessible by the other storage controller, wherein time consistency of write operations made to and between the first logical volume and the second logical volume is maintained at the secondary storage, and wherein, upon receiving a split command directed to one of the first and second logical volumes, split processing is performed on both the first and second logical volumes.