Patent ID: 8694723

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a drive controller interface configured to connect to a host computer through a bus; a first port configured to connect to a first set of storage devices using a SAS protocol; and a second port configured to connect to a second set of storage devices using a iSCSI protocol, wherein (i) said apparatus provides support for said SAS protocol and said iSCSI protocol to allow communication using both said SAS protocol and said iSCSI protocol through said drive controller interface, (ii) said communication is provided through a single drive controller interface, (iii) said apparatus implements support for both said SAS protocol and said iSCSI protocol by implementing (a) a mapping table to provide an equivalent SAS address of an iSCSI target, (b) a SAS to iSCSI frame translation module and (c) an iSCSI to SAS frame translation module.