Patent ID: 8762636

Claim:
A method for a writing user data from a host computer/server to a bank of disk drives in a data storage system, such host computer/server being coupled to the bank of disk drives through an interface, such interface comprising: a plurality of processors coupled to the host computer/server and to the bank of disk drives, the method comprising: arranging the bank of disk drives into a plurality of disk drive units connected to at least one of the processors, each one of the disk drive units having: (i) a magnetic storage media; and (ii) a non-volatile storage media; arranging the non-volatile storage media of the plurality of disk drive units into a global cache memory, the non-volatile storage media being distributed among the disk drive units within the bank of disk drives; transferring the user data from host computer/server to one of the processors; caching the user data in one of the plurality the of non-volatile storage media connected to such one of the processors; transferring the cached user data from such one of the plurality the of non-volatile storage media through the one of the processors connected thereto and subsequently to a different one of the processors; storing the cached user data in the magnetic storage media of the one of the disk drive units connected to the different one of the processors.