Maxtor and LSI Logic Demo Serial Storage
In Scottsdale, Arizona, Maxtor and LSI Logic demonstrated serial storage at Maxtor's Serial Storage in a Box Technology Symposium. The first public demonstration of four key serial protocols operating simultaneously, according to Maxtor and LSI, used Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) hard drive prototypes, SAS controllers, and SAS expander prototypes.
Using these technologies, the companies transferred data between SATA and SAS hard drives. "The significance of the interoperability of these technologies is that it validates that SATA and SAS hard drives can be used together in a single storage system," said Kevin Wittmer, director of technical marketing for Maxtor's Server Products Group. "This allows IT managers to create pools of storage based on a combination of SATA and SAS hard drives that can be allocated to applications based on performance, availability, capacity, and cost requirements."
Related to SAS, the demonstration showed off executing SCSI read/write command pairs that used the full Serial Attached SCSI Protocol (SSP). The SATA demonstration included the use of Serial ATA Tunneling Protocol (STP) and SATA protocol. The companies also used Serial Management Protocol (SMP) for discovery and expander management.
http://www.maxtor.com/en/technologies/serial_attached_scsi/index.htm
http://lsilogic.com/sas
