Motherboard Makers Get Behind SAS Technology
Motherboard makers Supermicro Computer, Milpitas, Calif., and Arima, Austin, Texas, recently began shipping motherboards with built-in SAS adapters. LSI Logic, Milpitas, also has released a SAS PCI-X add-in card.
These three new releases are a major indication that SAS is heating up in the market. Not only is the burgeoning technology faster, but it also supports SCSI and Serial ATA drives currently in existence.
Many solution providers view SAS as a way to provide faster performance without having to upgrade customers to more costly Fibre Channel.
“The main benefit is speed and performance,” said Doug Phillips, vice president of products and solutions at Seneca Data, a system builder based in Syracuse, N.Y.
Like many system builders, Phillips believes SAS has potential, but before jumping in he said his company will wait until the technology has a stronger foothold among customers.
“We will dabble a little bit, but we always give new technology a little bit of time,” Phillips said.
SAS runs at 3 Gbps to 6 Gbps and is expected to scale up to 12 Gbps within the next five years.
Like Fibre Channel, SAS can support multiple controllers to provide fault- tolerance and performance demands of high-availability applications.
Each SAS controller supports up to 128 devices, a significant leap from the 16 devices in traditional SCSI implementations.
Supermicro has released three motherboards with SAS on board. Each uses an Adaptec ASIC and HostRaid and storage management software.
Arima&s version uses an ASIC from LSI Logic. The companies did not release pricing information for the motherboards.
LSI Logic also introduced an add-in card that features eight 3-Gbps ports. The adapters are available in packs of five cards, along with driver CDs and low-profile brackets. System builders also can buy them in kits, which include an adapter, two cables, and an optional low-profile bracket and installation guide.
The five-packs carry a list price of $1,275, and the kits list for $367.