US 20030236953A1
(19) United States
(12) Patent Application Publication (io) Pub. No.: US 2003/0236953 Al
Grieff et al. (43) Pub. Date: Dec. 25,2003
(54) SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING MULTI-INITIATOR CAPABILITY TO AN ATA DRIVE
(75) Inventors: Thomas Grieff, Cypress, TX (US);
James R. Reif, Houston, TX (US);
Albert Chang, Houston, TX (US)
Correspondence Address:
HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY
Intellectual Property Administration
P.O. Box 272400
Fort Collins, CO 80527-2400 (US)
(73) Assignee: COMPAQ INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES GROUP, L.P., Houston, TX (US)
(21) Appl. No.: 10/373,969
(22) Filed: Feb. 25, 2003
Related U.S. Application Data
(63) Continuation-in-part of application No. 10/177,274, filed on Jun. 21, 2002.
Publication Classification
(51) Int. CI.7 G06F 12/00
(52) U.S. CI 711/151
(57) ABSTRACT
A multi-port adapter and method of operation suitable for use with serial ATA devices is disclosed. An adapter includes a switch that receives input from multiple host devices and an arbiter module for assigning a priority scheme to received commands. An outstanding request table is implemented as a memory module for storing identifying information associated with commands received from multiple host devices, and a free pointers queue is maintained to track slots available in the outstanding request table. A command tracker state machine decodes incoming requests from hosts, monitors the execution by these commands by the ATA device, and updates the memory module to reflect completion of commands. Also disclosed is a storage system including an adapter of the present invention and ATA storage devices.
