Netapp, Inc.

Network Appliance, Inc.

Keith Son

Michael Szelong

Brad A Reger

Wayne A Booth

Richard I Ely

A chassis assembly and method for including a component carrier in an electronic device. The assembly may include a carrier for housing a component for integration into the system. The carrier includes a frame constructed to at least partially contain the electronic portions of the component. A handle is pivotally coupled to the frame. The handle may rotate between an engaging orientation and a securing orientation. A pinion portion is included on the handle. The pinion portion may engage with a corresponding rack formed in the chassis to control movement of the carrier with respect to the chassis. A securing mechanism is disposed on an end of the handle opposite the pinion portion. The securing mechanism may be implemented to secure the handle in a securing orientation wherein the end of the handle, generally opposite the pinion portion, is disposed adjacent the frame. A securing mechanism such as a latch may be included to prevent rotation of the handle with respect to the frame.

Drive carrier

The present invention is a method and a system for dynamic mapping of a fiber channel loop ID in an ALPA loop. Based on reserved address information for the fiber channel system and a number of select ID bits for a slot ID, a dynamic drive mapping table is created. A unique address may be assigned to each drive and each controller in the ALPA loop. The created drive mapping table may be stored on logic decoding circuitry of an adaptor card coupled to each disk drive in the ALPA loop. When fiber channel loop ID signals are sent from a backplane, the fiber channel loop ID signals are translated into seven bits within an ALPA address range based on the dynamic drive mapping table. The converted signals may be sent to the disk drive coupled the adaptor card at boot up time.

Dynamic address mapping of a fibre channel loop ID

A chassis assembly for an electronic device such as a storage device. The assembly includes a chassis for housing various functional components included in the electronic device. A sub-housing for containing a waste heat generating device, a device which requires temperature moderation, is included. The sub-housing defines a first airflow exhaust path for exhausting air in a first direction and a second airflow exhaust path for exhausting air in a second direction. The directing of airflow from the sub-housing is based on a chassis enclosure configuration such as to allow for the implementation of a common component including a component enclosure in a variety of chassis form factors. A method of controlling airflow in a electronic device enclosure includes the steps of utilizing a fan to generate a flow of air, directing the flow of air through a sub-housing including a waste heat generating device, and implementing the electronic device enclosure to selectively direct the exhaust path of the generated airflow from the sub-housing base on the configuration of the electronic device enclosure.

Unique airflow path using fungible chassis components

Storage and network data can be received from one network using a multi-protocol network adapter. In one embodiment, such a multi-protocol network adapter includes a port to receive a serialized data stream, the serialized data stream including traffic data encoded using a traffic protocol and storage data encoded using a storage protocol and a receiver coupled to the port to de-serialize the received data stream. A physical layer frame extracted from the de-serialized data stream can be stored in an input buffer. The multi-protocol network adapter can also include a protocol identifier coupled to the input buffer to determine whether the physical layer frame was encoded using the traffic or the storage protocol, and a storage decoder coupled to the protocol identifier to decode the physical layer frame using the storage protocol if the physical layer frame is determined to have been encoded using the storage protocol by the protocol identifier.

Multi-protocol network adapter

Coupling disks having only a single controller connection to more than one controller. An adaptor interfaces an ATA disk with two interfaces to a backplane having a fiber channel backplane interface form factor. Switching logic controls the interfaces, so the ATA disk has redundant capability for connecting to controlling devices. The backplane communicates signals suitable to the ATA disk, while having the same form factor as a fiber channel disk. The backplane is coupled to a signal converter, so an ATA disk can be coupled to a fiber channel interface. The signal converter allows backplanes with ATA disks to be mixed with fiber channel disks, on one fiber channel loop. ATA disks are coupled to fiber channel backplanes, so fiber channel techniques are used to provide multiple controllers for them.

Fiber channel adaptor for serial or parallel ATA disks

A method of writing data to a storage medium comprises receiving blocks of data to be written to a physical medium of the disk, from a data source and storing the blocks of data in a write cache for the disk. The method further comprises checking the status of a flush criterion that controls when to flush the write cache; flushing the write cache by writing the data in the write cache to the physical medium if the flush criterion is satisfied; and sending a message to the data source to indicate that the blocks of data have been written to the physical medium.

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Hayward, CA, United States of America

Keith Son