Patent ID: 8078718

Claim:
A method comprising: operating a first storage server head and a second storage server head configured redundantly to provide a host with access to a plurality of mass storage devices of a storage network, wherein each of the plurality of mass storage devices is coupled to a same interconnect, wherein each of the first storage server head and the second storage server head comprises an identical diagnostic kernel, either of which is operable to initiate a diagnostic process to communicate with the other storage server head; and assessing an operational status of the second storage server head by executing the diagnostic process by the diagnostic kernel in the first storage server head to send a signal to communicate with the second storage server head over a passive backplane using a Gigabit Ethernet protocol, wherein the passive backplane comprises the same interconnect that is coupled to each of the plurality of mass storage devices, wherein the second storage server head receives the signal and responds to communicate the operational status of the second storage server head via the passive backplane, wherein the diagnostic process is executed while the second storage server head is in a mode for providing the host with access to the plurality of mass storage devices, wherein each of the first and second storage server heads is configurable to receive both file-level access requests and block-level access requests to store data onto the mass storage devices, to provide one of a storage area network and a network attached storage as the storage network according to a user selection after deployment.