Method and apparatus for storage system management in a multi-host environment

A method of managing a storage system is provided which allows each host of connected to a storage system supporting multiple hosts to view the identification information assigned to the storage devices by the respective hosts. The method includes providing a command which allows a host to write identification information to an area on the disk drives controlled by the host which was previously reserved for use by the storage system. In addition to writing the data to the physical storage device, execution of the command also causes the identification information to be written to an area in global memory which holds information about each of the storage devices in the storage system. Since the information is stored in a global memory, each host my access the information. Using a second command provided, any host may read the information in global memory and thus learn the identification assigned by other hosts. This allows a maintenance utility run on one host to create a cross reference between storage system identifications assigned to the disk drives and host system identifications assigned to the disk drives.