Patent ID: 8782337

Claim:
A storage system, comprising: a storage apparatus for storing therein data used by an external apparatus; first and second temporary data storage units for temporarily storing therein data to read from the storage apparatus; a host interface communicatively coupled with the external apparatus, and the first and second temporary data storage units, that is configured to control data transfer between the external apparatus, and the first and second temporary data storage units; a disk interface communicatively coupled with the first and second temporary data storage units, and the storage apparatus, that is configured to control data transfer between the first and second temporary data storage units, and the storage apparatus; a first controller that is configured to control data transfer between the external apparatus and the storage apparatus; and, a second controller communicatively coupled with the first and second temporary data storage units, that is configured to control data transfer between the first and second temporary storage units, wherein, when the host interface receives a command from the external apparatus, the first controller is configured to select as a data transfer process one of a first data transfer process and a second data transfer process based on the command, and wherein the first data transfer process is a data transfer from the first temporary data storage unit to the external apparatus by the host interface, and the second data transfer process is a data transfer from the first temporary data storage unit to the second temporary data storage unit by the second controller, and a data transfer from the second temporary data storage unit to the external apparatus by the host interface.