Ronald John Naminski

US Patent:

58127542, Sep 22, 1998

Filed:

Sep 18, 1996

Appl. No.:

8/718743

Inventors:

Albert S. Lui - Cupertino CA
Ronald John Naminski - Mountain View CA
James Wesley Oliver - San Jose CA
Radek Aster - Sunnyvale CA
Neill Preston Wood - Los Gatos CA

Assignee:

Silicon Graphics, Inc. - Mountain View CA

International Classification:

G06F 1100

US Classification:

39518204

Abstract:

A modular and highly available RAID system has a fiber channel arbitrated loop (FC-AL) interface coupled with a disk array. Fault-tolerant operation is assured. The system provides dual and isolated arbitrated host and storage device loop circuits for redundant, independent input/output (I/O) paths to local and/or remote host computers. Each loop includes bypass circuits which prevent the failure of any device (host computer or storage device) from affecting the operation of loop. Orthogonal data striping may be used to further assure data integrity.