The present invention is directed to an advanced storage controller that is capable of providing parallel processing capabilities to a host processing system connected storage system to increase performance, functionality and reliability of the entire computing system. The advanced storage controller comprises at least one input interface and at least one output interface, a host device simulation component, a cache device component, a physical device component and a management component. Such an advanced storage controller further, includes one or more processor elements and storage elements, which may be shared by the components or dedicated to one component. Additionally, the advanced storage controller is scalable by the static or dynamic addition of components, processors and/or memory.