Adaptec, Inc.

William E Lynn

A RAID system includes a pair of RAID controllers adapted to operate in active-active mode, each controller including a cache memory and at least one SAS/SATA I/O chip connected to a plurality of hard disk drives. Each SAS/SATA I/O chip includes more SAS/SATA ports than required to carry data to the hard drives. The caches in the respective controllers are synchronized via the extra SAS/SATA ports in each controller.

Cache synchronization in a RAID subsystem using serial attached SCSI and/or serial ATA

A method and an apparatus for providing multiple ports to a single port device are provided. According to the present invention, single port devices that are incapable of communicating across a shared communication bus, and therefore require a point to point communication channel, may be interconnected to multiple hosts using a switch assembly. The switch assembly selectively establishes a communication path between a single host and a device. Additionally, the present invention provides a method and apparatus by which computer subsystems, such as RAID storage subsystems, may be implemented using inexpensive storage devices. Furthermore, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for providing a high reliability computer subsystem by configuring the subsystem such that no single active component failure will result in the failure of the entire subsystem.

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Longmont, CO, United States of America

William E Lynn