• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • The SAS Disk Spec Gets a Bandwidth Boost

    October 6, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

    Now that Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) disks are starting to be deployed as a standard feature on servers of all shapes and sizes–they came to the Power Systems servers this year, after a lot of crabbing–it is time to ramp up the SAS specification and get more bandwidth.

    The SCSI Trade Association announced last week that the next-generation SAS-2 disk interface, which sports a 6 Gbit/sec interface, is ready to rock. That’s twice the bandwidth available in the current SAS spec, which offers 3 Gbit/sec and the original SAS drives, which came out at a much less useful 1.5 Gbit/sec on the interface coming out of the disk drive.

    The updated SAS-2 spec also has wider ports, two ports per drive (instead of one), and full duplex data transmission over the ports. The cables used to link the drives to disk controllers can now be 10 meters, instead of the 6 meter maximum of the 3 Gbit/sec SAS drives. And, of course, SAS-2 disks are going to come out alongside PCI-Express Generation 2 peripheral slots. PCI-Express slots offer data lanes that run at 250 MB/sec and then gang up 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32 lanes to allow peripherals ever-increasing bandwidth back into the system bus. With PCI-Express 2.0, the bandwidth is doubled to 500 MB/sec, which means SAS-2 and PCI-Express 2.0 are kept in relatively stable positions in relation to each other.

    In addition to seeing a new range of faster SAS disks in 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch form factors, it will be interesting to see how flash drives are deployed in servers using the faster SAS interface.

    RELATED STORIES

    IBM Upgrades System i Storage with SAS Drives

    Small Form Factor Disks Go Mainstream, the System i Has Gone Fishin’

    Mad Dog 21/21: Paved With Good Intentions

    Expect i5/OS V5R5 in 2007, Power6 for System i Maybe in 2007

    The Disk Drive at 50: Still Spinning



                         Post this story to del.icio.us
                   Post this story to Digg
        Post this story to Slashdot

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags: Tags: mtfh_rc, Volume 17, Number 38 -- October 6, 2008

    Sponsored by
    Manta Technologies

    The Leader in IBM i Education!
    Need training on anything i?
    Manta is all you need.

    130 courses and competency exams on:
    · IBM i operations
    · System Management and Security
    · IBM i Programming Tools
    · Programming in RPG, COBOL, CL, Java
    · Web Development
    · SQL, DB2, Query

    Product features:
    · Runs in every popular browser
    · Available 24/7/365
    · Free Student Reference Guides
    · Free Student Administration
    · Concurrent User License
    · Built-In IBM i Simulator

    You can download our 200-page catalog and take sample sessions at MantaTech.com.

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Admin Alert: When System Job Tables Attack, Part II QJRN/400 Sniffs Out Fraud, One Journal Receiver at a Time

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

TFH Volume: 17 Issue: 38

This Issue Sponsored By

    Table of Contents

    • Bytware Bought by Help/Systems and Audax
    • The Power Systems 570 i Edition Versus Big Windows Boxes
    • An Open Letter to i Shops from the Power Systems GM
    • System Performance Management Is Like Having Insurance
    • IDC and i: Next Time, Can You Talk to Some Real i Shops?
    • Reader Feedback on As I See It: Insult to Injury
    • IBM and Vision Solutions Align HA Distribution Resources
    • Net Loss Clouds Lawson’s Q1 Report
    • Evans Data 2008 Survey Ranks Application Servers
    • The SAS Disk Spec Gets a Bandwidth Boost

    Content archive

    • The Four Hundred
    • Four Hundred Stuff
    • Four Hundred Guru

    Recent Posts

    • Doing The Texas Two Step From Power9 To Power10
    • PHP’s Legacy Problem
    • Guru: For IBM i Newcomers, An Access Client Solutions Primer
    • IBM i 7.1 Extended Out To 2024 And Up To The IBM Cloud
    • Some Practical Advice On That HMC-Power9 Impedance Mismatch
    • IBM Extends Dynamic Capacity Pricing Scheme To Its Cloud
    • Here’s What You Should Do About The IBM i Skills Shortage
    • Matillion Founder Recounts Midrange Roots
    • Four Hundred Monitor, February 24
    • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 23, Number 8

    Subscribe

    To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

    Pages

    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Contributors
    • Four Hundred Monitor
    • IBM i PTF Guide
    • Media Kit
    • Subscribe

    Search

    Copyright © 2021 IT Jungle

    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.