Patent ID: 8543763

Claim:
A redundant array of independent disks (RAID) controller, comprising: a host interface, a processing core, and a storage interface, wherein the processing core is connected to a host through the host interface, and is connected to a hard disk through the storage interface, wherein the RAID controller comprises a halt control pin connected to the processing core and a control signal line in the host, wherein the processing core is configured to: receive a command for checking a power mode of the hard disk from the host through the host interface after the host sets the hard disk to a standby state; send the command to the hard disk through the storage interface; receive a response value responsive to the command from the hard disk through the storage interface, wherein the response value indicates that the hard disk is in the standby state; send the response value to the host through the host interface; receive a first level sent through the control signal line by the host to the halt control pin when the hard disk is in the standby state, and halt an execution of a program in the processing core according to the first level so as to halt an access to the hard disk; receive a second level sent through the control signal line by the host to the halt control pin when the host receives a service request, and resume the execution of the program according to the second level; and receive, through the host interface, the service request sent by the host and send the received service request to the hard disk through the storage interface, so as to awaken the hard disk to execute an operation corresponding to the service request.