Patent ID: 7120705

Claim:
A disk array system comprising: at least one ATA magnetic disk; at least one disk array controller for controlling the ATA magnetic disk; and at least one interface card having a processing offload function module, existing on a path between the disk array controller and the ATA magnetic disk, wherein the disk array controller outputs to the interface card one of a standard processing FC command for performing a standard processing, and an offload processing FC command for performing a vendor-unique offload processing, wherein the processing offload function module includes a command analysis processing section, an operation processing section, a data buffer, an ATA connection interface, an ATA command mapping table, and a disk ID information management table which records relationships between FC IDs and ATA connection interface numbers for managing correlation between the FC IDs and the corresponding ATA magnetic disk and thus realizing indirect allocation of the FC IDs, wherein, when the processing offload function module receives the standard processing FC command sent from the disk array controller, the command analysis processing section determines whether the standard processing FC command can be mapped onto an ATA command, and if the standard processing FC command can be mapped onto an ATA command, the command analysis processing section uses the ATA command mapping table to select the ATA command that corresponds to the standard processing FC command, prepares in the data buffer the ATA command selected thereby, the ATA connection interface number that can be obtained through correlation with the FC ID from the disk ID information management table and if necessary a storage number for storing data that is obtained by executing the ATA command, and issues the ATA command to the ATA magnetic disk via the ATA connection interface with the ATA connection interface number designated in the data buffer, and wherein, when the processing offload function module receives the offload processing FC command sent from the disk array controller, the operation processing section takes over the offload processing FC command from the command analysis processing section and prepares a group of ATA commands for the offload processing FC command which achieve an optimal offload processing in an ATA protocol, and computes when necessary.