Patent ID: 7216195

Claim:
Apparatus comprising: a first link control card coupled to a plurality of disk drive carriers; a second link control card coupled to the plurality of disk drive carriers; a first plurality of serial buses on the first link control card, the first plurality of serial buses being input to a first plurality of serial bus controllers, the first plurality of serial bus controllers producing as output a first plurality of output serial buses, the first plurality of output serial buses being input to a first switch, the first switch producing as output a first LCC serial bus; a second plurality of serial buses on the second link control card, the second plurality of serial buses being input to a second plurality of serial bus controllers, the second plurality of serial bus controllers producing as output a second plurality of output serial buses, the second plurality of output serial buses being input to a second switch, the second switch producing as output a second LCC serial bus; the first and second LCC serial buses being coupled to a serial bus controller on each disk drive carrier; the serial bus controller producing an output comprising storage technology specific management signals for managing disk drives; wherein: the first switch includes (i) multiple serial bus controller ports configured to connect to the output serial buses produced by the first plurality of serial bus controllers, and (ii) multiple LCC serial bus ports, each LCC serial bus port of the first switch being configured to connect to a respective LCC serial bus coupled to a serial bus controller on a disk drive carrier; the first switch is configured to perform switching operations on communications from the first plurality of output serial buses to direct each communication specifically to a particular disk drive carrier through a particular LCC serial bus based on a first de-multiplex command; the second switch includes (i) multiple serial bus controller ports configured to connect to the output serial buses produced by the second plurality of serial bus controllers, and (ii) multiple LCC serial bus ports, each LCC serial bus port of the second switch being configured to connect to a respective LCC serial bus coupled to a serial bus controller on a disk drive carrier; and the second switch is configured to perform switching operations on communications from the second plurality of output serial buses to direct each communication specifically to a particular disk drive carrier through a particular LCC serial bus based on a second de-multiplex command.