Patent ID: 8271606

Claim:
A storage server system that provides block-level storage for host computers over a computer network, the system comprising: a storage server comprising a processor, an array of disk drives coupled to a controller, and a network interface for connecting the storage server to a computer network; and a software system which is configured to provide functionality for subdividing storage space of the array of disk drives into storage partitions, and provide functionality for uniquely allocating the storage partitions to host computers on the network such that the storage server may be shared by the host computers, and such that when a partition is allocated to a host computer, the partition appears to user-level processes of the host computer as a local disk drive, wherein the storage server is capable of processing requests received from the host computers in parallel, the software system comprises a host driver which is configured to run on the host computers and a server driver which is configured to be executed by the processor of the storage server, and the host driver and the server driver are configured to communicate over the computer network via TCP/IP connections.