other hand physical names for the storage device slots are defined by a hardware configuration in one or more embodiments of the invention a logical to physical topological location mapping software searches device path for each storage device slot from the operating system to the physical device level and stores correlations of the physical names for the storage device slots and the logical names assigned by the operating system in a data structure fig3 shows a wysiwyg representation of logical to physical name topology for a multi controller storage device system in one or more embodiments of the invention the multi controller storage device system includes six storage device controllers 304 306 308 310 312 and 314 and each storage device controller contains eight storage device slots for example a first storage device controller 304 has a physical name i e controller 1 and an assigned logical name i e logical name a physical names for each storage device slot is defined by a hardware configuration in one or more embodiments of the invention the physical names for the storage device slots are defined sequentially from a bottom left storage device slot to a bottom right storage device slot i.