Patent ID: 7577773

Claim:
A method for processing read requests sent by a host bus adapter (“HBA”) to a host system for transferring data stored from a host system memory to a device, accessible to the HBA via a network connection, comprising: (a) sending a first read request and at least a second read request within a programmable time interval (“T”) to the host system, for transferring data from the host system memory; wherein the second read request is sent after the first read request is sent to the host system but before the first read request is processed by the host system and data associated with the first read request is transferred; wherein a transmit direct memory access (DMA) module sends the first read request and the second read request to the host system, staggered within the time interval T; and wherein the first read request and the second read request are a part of a data transfer request, such that a transfer size for the data transfer request is larger than a transfer size for each of the first read request and the second read request; (b) receiving data from the host system in any order, in response to the first read request and the second read request; (c) placing the received data in response to both the first read request and the second read request in independent slots of a transmit buffer; and (d) unloading the independent transmit buffer slots based on an unload command, such that data associated with the first read request is sent to the device before data associated with the second read request is sent, even though data associated with the second read request is received at one or more of the independent transmit buffer slots before data associated with the first read request is received.