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Abstract

A networked storage server has a bottom-up caching hierarchy. The bottom level cache is located on an embedded controller that is a combination of network interface card (NIC) and host bus adapter (HBA). Storage data coming from or going to network are cached at this bottom level cache and metadata related to these data are passed to server host for processing. When cached data exceed the capacity of the bottom level cache, data are moved to the host memory that is usually much larger than the memory on the controller. For storage read requests from the network, most data are directly passed to the network through the bottom level cache from the storage device such as a hard drive or RAID. Similarly for storage write requests from the network, most data are directly written to the storage device through the bottom level cache without copying them to the host memory. Such data caching at the controller level dramatically reduces bus traffic resulting in great performance improvement for networked storages.

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