Patent ID: 7502954

Claim:
A data storage system comprising: a disk drive array including a plurality of disk drives; a first storage processor for controlling the operation of the data storage system; a second storage processor for controlling the operation of the data storage system; a first arbiter for controlling communication of data from the first storage processor and the second storage processor to a first group of disk drives of the disk drive array; a second arbiter for controlling communication of data from the first storage processor and the second storage processor to a second group of disk drives of the disk drive array; and a plurality of multiplexers, each being associated with one of the plurality of disk drives and receiving control signals from one of the first and second arbiters and data from each of the first and second storage processors; wherein selected data communicated from the first storage processor and the second storage processor to the first group of disk drives of the disk drive array based on a control signal from the first arbiter is stored on disk drives in the first group of disk drives and also stored on disk drives in the second group of disk drives based on a control signal from the second arbiter, such that, upon failure of the first arbiter, the selected data is available to the first storage processor and the second storage processor through the second arbiter.