Usability

The SAS controller supports the ANSI Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) standard, version 1.0. In addition, the controller supports the Serial ATA (SATA) protocol defined by the Serial ATA specification, version 1.0a. The SAS controller is a versatile controller that supporting both the SAS and SATA interfaces and provides the backbone of both server and high-end workstation environments.

Protocols supported include:

•Serial SCSI Protocol (SSP): Communication with other SAS devices.

•SATA II Protocol: Communication with other SATA II devices.

•Serial Management Protocol (SMP): Topology management information sharing with expanders.

•Serial Tunneling Protocol (STP) support for SATA II through expander interfaces.

•Smaller, thinner cabling with serial point-to-point 3.0 Gbps data transfer rates.

•Allows mixed connections to SAS or SATA II targets.

•Support for non disk devices and mixed capacity drives.

•Support for software RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 10.

•Global hot spare with auto rebuild if an array drive fails.

•Fixed RAID stripe size of 64 KB.

•Advanced array configuration and management utilities that provide:

—Drive migration.

—Drive roaming.

•An upgradeable Flash ROM interface.

•Allows for staggered spin up, hot plug, lower power consumption.

Intel® RAID Controller SASMF8I Hardware Guide