Maxtor and LSI Logic Show First Serial Storage Working Demo

(Auszug aus der Pressemitteilung)

MILPITAS, Calif., Oct. 20 – Maxtor Corporation and LSI Logic announced today that they participated in the industry’s first public demonstration of data exchange between Serial ATA (SATA) and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) hard drives via SAS controllers and expanders. The interoperability demonstration included Maxtor MaXLine SATA drives and Maxtor’s prototype SAS hard drives in conjunction with LSI Logic SAS controller and SAS expander prototypes. Key customers viewed the milestone demonstration during last week’s Maxtor Serial Storage in a Box Technology Symposium in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“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.”

The demonstration showed SCSI write/read command pairs being executed using full Serial Attached SCSI Protocol (SSP) to the prototype SAS drive, and full Serial ATA Tunneling Protocol (STP) and SATA protocol to the SATA drive. The exhibit also included the Serial Management Protocol (SMP), which is used for discovery and expander management, and attendees could see that SSP, STP, and SMP frames were being generated across the interface on a SAS analyzer connected between the controller and expander prototypes.

“This is the first ever demonstration of four key protocols operating simultaneously,” said David Steele, director of product planning and management for the LSI Logic storage standard product division. “By being able to demonstrate a practical implementation of SAS and SATA interoperability, LSI Logic and Maxtor have moved next-generation SCSI technology another step closer to real product availability.”

SAS is the next generation of the SCSI interface. It has been developed to improve storage system performance, scalability, and availability while providing compatibility with high-capacity Serial ATA (SATA) drives and dual port, high performance SAS drives.

Maxtor Serial Attached SCSI
LSI Logic Serial Attached SCSI