Patent ID: 6987673

Claim:
A rack mount data storage system, comprising: a rack mount cabinet having a set of vertical rails defining a central space; a power supply subsystem mounted to the set of vertical rails of the rack mount cabinet and being disposed within the central space, the power supply subsystem having a set of power supplies configured to provide a set of power supply signals and a power supply cooling assembly configured to provide air flow substantially horizontally from a front of the rack mount cabinet to a back of the rack mount cabinet to remove heat from the set of power supplies; a disk drive subsystem mounted to the set of vertical rails of the rack mount cabinet and being disposed within the central space, the disk drive subsystem having a set of disk drives configured to provide high capacity non-volatile data storage in response to the set of power supply signals and a disk drive cooling assembly configured to provide air flow substantially horizontally from the front of the rack mount cabinet to the back of the rack mount cabinet to remove heat from the set of the disk drives; and a data storage circuitry subsystem configured to operate the disk drive subsystem in response to the set of power supply signals, the data storage circuitry subsystem including: a housing configured to mount to the set of vertical rails of the rack mount cabinet within the central space and above both the power supply subsystem and the disk drive subsystem; a set of circuit boards configured to install in a vertically aligned manner within the housing to define a set of vertically oriented channels within the central space defined by the set of vertical rails of the rack mount cabinet; and a fan assembly configured to mount to the set of vertical rails in a position above the housing to generate a vertical air stream through the set of vertically oriented channels and to exhaust the vertical air stream to an external location above the rack mount cabinet.