A storage system and method are provided including physical storage devices controlled by storage control devices constituting a storage control layer operatively coupled to the physical storage devices and hosts. The storage control layer includes: a first virtual layer interfacing with the hosts, operable to represent a logical address space characterized by logical block addresses, characterized by an Internal Virtual Address Space (IVAS) and operable, responsive to I/O requests addressed to logical block addresses, to provide protocol-dependent translation of said logical block addresses into IVAS addresses; and a second virtual layer interfacing with the physical storage space, and operable to represent available physical space to said hosts and characterized by a Physical Virtual Address Space (PVAS). Each address in PVAS having a corresponding address in IVAS. The second virtual layer is operable to translate PVAS addresses corresponding to IVAS addresses into addresses in physical address space in a protocol-independent manner.