Patent ID: 7792923

Claim:
A network-attached disk (NAD) device configured to be connected through a general purpose front-end network to a host having a system bus, wherein the host has a virtual host bus adapter that recognizes the device as a local device connected directly to the system bus of the host, the NAD device comprising: a network adapter for receiving a disk access command in data link frames through the general purpose front-end network; a disk controller, connected to the network adapter, for executing the disk access command; a disk for storing data; and a controller, connected to the network adapter and the disk controller, for controlling the operation of the NAD device; wherein access to the disk is operatively controlled by the disk controller, no disk access command is required to be routed through a server, the NAD device is configured to be automatically discovered by the host when the NAD device is connected to the general purpose front-end network, the NAD device is not directly connected to a system bus of the host, and the NAD device is configured to be recognized by the virtual host bus driver created by a NAD device driver of the host, the NAD device driver comprising a device file and device driver routines for the device driver to register the device driver to the host.