Patent ID: 7752385

Claim:
A data storage enclosure, comprising: an enclosure connector plane, comprising: first, second, third and fourth controller card connectors; and first and second pluralities of disk connectors; a first plurality of hard disk drives (HDDs), each HDD coupled to one of the first plurality of disk connectors; first and second redundant controller cards associated with the first plurality of HDDs and coupled to the first and second controller card connectors, respectively, each of the first and second controller cards containing a SCSI enclosure services (SES) processor and a non-volatile storage (NVS) unit associated with the SES processor, the first SES processor being designated as a master processor, the first controller card further containing a configuration table stored in the NVS unit associated with the master SES processor and accessible by the master SES processor into which one of a first, second and third configuration instruction, defining a storage enclosure configuration, is loadable from an external configuration unit; if second plurality of HDDs is not installed in the second plurality of disk connectors and the first configuration instruction is stored in the configuration table, the master SES processor enables and disables paths within the storage enclosure such that the data storage enclosure is configurable into a first configuration as a single low density storage enclosure; if the second plurality of HDDs is installed in the second plurality of disk connectors and the second configuration instruction is stored in the configuration table, the master SES processor enables and disables paths within the storage enclosure such that the data storage enclosure is configurable into a second configuration as high density trunked virtual enclosures; and if the second plurality of HDDs is installed in the second plurality of disk connectors, third and fourth controller cards are installed in the third and fourth controller card connectors and the third configuration instruction is stored in the configuration table, the master SES processor enables and disables paths within the storage enclosure such that the data storage enclosure is configurable into a third configuration as two low density virtual enclosures.