Inventors:
Bruce A. Thompson - Highlands Ranch CO
David J. Van Maren - Ft. Collins CO
John G. McCarthy - Thornton CO
R. Andrew Purcell - Ft. Collins CO
Michael Rottinghaus - Greeley CO
Assignee:
Hewlett-Packard Company - Palo Alto CA
International Classification:
G06F 1312, G06F 1730
Abstract:
A Transparent Peripheral File System (TPFS) includes a Peripheral File System Adapter (PFSA) which communicates with a host operating system at the vnode level of file operation by packaging such communications for transmission over an I/O system interface, such as SCSI. A file peripheral system remote from the host and in a peripheral relation thereto is responsive to the PFSA, without an intervening file server. The peripheral file system produces hardware commands for the mass storage device whose space it manages. The peripheral file system may be embedded in a mass storage device, a lump in the interconnecting interface cable, or a smart interface card in the backplane of the host. The peripheral file system may include a daisy chain connection to allow the propagation of vnode communication to other peripheral file systems. In this way a hierarchy of peripheral file systems may be physically mounted to one another in a way that corresponds to how they are logically mounted.