Patent ID: 7624206

Claim:
A data storage system, comprising: (A) a chassis; (B) a pair of storage processor printed circuit boards disposed in the chassis, each one of the pair of first printed circuit boards having disposed thereon: (a) a processor; (b) a translator controlled by the processor; (c) a SAS expander having a bidirectional front end port and a plurality of bidirectional backend ports, and an expansion port; (d) a SAS controller coupled between the translator and the expander; (C) an interposer printed circuit board disposed in the chassis; (D) a plurality of multiplexers disposed on the interposer printed circuit board, each one of the multiplexers having: (a) a pair of bidirectional front end ports; (b) a pair of bidirectional back end ports; wherein (c) a first one of the pair of bidirectional front end ports is connected to a corresponding backend port of the SAS expander disposed on a first one of the pair of storage processor printed circuit boards; and (d) a second one of the pair of bidirectional front end ports is connected to a corresponding backend port of the SAS expander disposed on a second one of the pair of storage processor printed circuit boards; and (E) a plurality of disk drives disposed in the chassis, each one being coupled to at least one backend port of a corresponding one of the plurality of multiplexers.