CeBIT America: Serial Attached SCSI Demonstrated

Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) was one of the hot technologies at the first CeBIT computer trade show held in the United States last week. (The SCSI Trade Association finalized the SAS standard last month.) The CeBIT America show featured demonstrations and news about SAS by many companies, including Adaptec, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Seagate Technology. The three companies demonstrated SAS interfaces that support both SAS drives and Serial ATA drivers. The demonstration highlighted Seagate drive prototypes that use Adaptec controllers, which feature 3GBps connections. The companies touted the benefits of compatibility, saying it will provide users with cost-effective data capacity. SAS products are expected to reach the market by the end of 2003.

   At CeBIT America, HP announced that it expects to start to change the storage technology in its servers to SAS by mid- to late 2004. The company said it expects SAS storage to cost 15 percent less than today's standard SCSI systems. HP plans on supporting the next-generation SAS 2.0 standard, which is due in 2005 and which will double bandwidth to 6GBps. Later on in the SAS road map, SAS 3.0 will double SAS 2.0's speed..

   For more information about the companies and technology described in this article, visit the following Web sites:

   http://www.scsita.org

   http://www.adaptec.com

   http://www.hp.com

   http://www.seagate.com