Electronic apparatus having I/O board with cable-free redundant adapter cards thereon

• Main Authors: SANTELER; PAUL A, BACCHUS; REZA M, SABOTTA; MICHAEL L
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 16.11.1999
• Edition: 6
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; PHYSICS

The cage-supported hard disk drives in a computer server system are coupled to connectors on the cage back plane circuit boards and are controlled by a pair of array controller cards which are hot-plug connected in a redundant manner on the system I/O board using a pair of connectors mounted on the I/O board, each connector having first and second sets of electrical contacts thereon. Connector edge portions of the array controller cards are plugged into the I/O board connectors and have first and second sets of electrical contacts that engage the corresponding first and second sets of electrical contacts on their associated I/O board connectors. Formed on the I/O board are (1) a peripheral interconnect bus structure connected to the first sets of connector electrical contacts, (2) an electrical bus structure connected to the second sets of connector electrical contacts and associated cable connectors, and (3) an intercontroller bus structure connected between the second sets of connector electrical contacts and enabling the two array controller cards to communicate with one another independently of the peripheral interconnect bus structure. Electrical cables are interconnected between the electrical bus structure and the back plane circuit boards to couple the array controller cards thereto in a redundant control manner without requiring direct cable connection to either of the array controller cards.