HP DL360 Serial Attached SCSI storage technology, 2nd Edition - Page 11

Mini SAS 8x cable connectors SAS-2.1 adds Mini SAS 8x internal and external connectors. The Mini SAS 8i HD (internal) connector will be a hybrid that combines two serial general purpose input/output (SGPIO) busses. The Mini SAS 8x HD (external) connector will support both passive and active cables. SAS topologies SAS makes it possible for manufacturers to create highly scalable topologies-internal, external, or both-giving customers the flexibility to design and deploy a range of solutions. Using SATA Tunneling Protocol (STP), SAS controllers communicate with SATA devices through expanders, which is the key to SATA scalability in the SAS domain. Internal Figure 9 describes a topology that can be used for internal RAID systems incorporating SAS or SATA drives. Each drive has a point-to-point connection to the controller. The controller can support a maximum of eight drives. For internal configurations of this type, the external port is disabled if more than four drives are connected. Figure 9. Two internal ports on the controller provide redundancy for storage applications. 11