Patent ID: 7174399

Claim:
A storage system for handling input/output (I/O) requests from a plurality of processors, comprising: a storage media including a plurality of disk units; a first interface adaptor to be coupled to a first processor of the processors; and a second interface adaptor to be coupled to a second processor of the processors; wherein the first interface adaptor is configured to: receive a first block I/O request from the first processor, and determine a first logical volume to be accessed by the first processor based on the first block I/O request, the first logical volume being mapped to a first portion of the storage media, wherein the second interface adaptor is configured to: receive a file I/O request from the second processor, convert the file I/O request to a second block I/O request, and determine one of the first logical volume or a second logical volume to be accessed by the second processor based on the second block I/O request, the second logical volume being mapped to a second portion of the storage media, wherein at least one of a plurality of physical disk units corresponding to the first portion of the storage media can be reallocated as at least one of a plurality of physical disk units corresponding to the second portion of the storage media.