A conventional data storage system manages host data on behalf of one or more external host computers. Such a storage-dedicated system is typically provisioned for fault tolerance (e.g., host data redundancy, replication, recovery, etc.) and high capacity (e.g., terabytes, petabytes, etc.).
During operation, storage processing circuitry of the data storage system (e.g., director circuit boards, storage processors, etc.) processes host input/output (I/O) instructions such as small computer system interface (SCSI) read and write commands. For example, to process a SCSI write command from an external host computer, the storage processing circuitry caches host data from the host computer into main memory, and eventually transfers the host data from main memory to an array of disk drives. Additionally, to process a SCSI read command from the external host computer, the storage processing circuitry loads host data from the array of disk drives into main memory, as well as provides the host data to the host computer.