SAS (Serial Attached SCSI)

[stigfjel]

Det har lenge vært snakk om at denne nye standarden vil komme og ta over for parallell SCSI en lengre tid nå. Men når kommer egentlig denne herligheten? Det skjer visst fint lite med parallell SCSI for tiden. Ikke noe nytt på lenge.

[Dollar]

Strengt tatt ser jeg ikke helt hva som skulle skjedd med paralell SCSI, det er i all hovedsak raskt nok (320MB/s per kanal), stabilt og støtter hennsiktsmessig med disker per kanal.

 

Men jeg skulle ønske det ville skje noe på SAS fronten, spesielt ryktene om at fremtidige S-ATA disker kanskje kan kjøres på SAS kontrollere er spennende.

[el-asso]

Planene er i løpet av 2004. Noe mer konkret er vanskelig å si, men ting er ihvertfall på gang, ref. dette utdraget av en artikkel hos

Enterprise Storage Forum

 

Serial Attached SCSI Moves Closer to Reality

February 17, 2004

By Paul Shread

 

Maxtor, Seagate, and LSI have announced the first Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) data transfers directly to disk, paving the way for the debut of the first SAS products later this year.

 

Maxtor says it achieved full speed, 3Gb/s operation between an LSI Logic SAS controller and an in-form-factor prototype Maxtor SAS disk drive with dual active ports. Using the LSI Logic SAS1064 controller IC, Maxtor completed simultaneous read and write operations on both ports and verified 3Gb/s SAS I/O transfers, in accordance with the SAS protocol and standards.

 

Maxtor says it integrated several key technologies to achieve the milestone, including enabling queued read, write, and compare commands across the SAS interface, and reading and writing data to and from the media.

 

Dual ports provide two separate data paths to the drive, allowing for higher levels of performance and eliminating a single point of failure, making the technology a natural for highly-available enterprise storage systems.

 

Kevin Wittmer, director of technical marketing at Maxtor, told Enterprise Storage Forum that the fully integrated ASIC solution is one of the first to write data "all the way to disk and read it back, not just to buffer." It moves the company closer to its goal of providing "serial storage in a box," he says.

 

Wittmer adds that he expects SAS products to become available in the second half of the year.

 

Det fremgår også at SAS ventes å ha overtatt totalt for SCSI i løpet av 2007.