Section 1
Introduction
NOTE: The following SANblade QLogic host adapter boards are collectively referred to as the QLA23xx board unless otherwise noted:
■QLA2300 family (64-bit PCI to Fibre Channel copper media)
■QLA2300F family (64-bit PCI to Fibre Channel optical media)
■QLA2302F family (64-bit PCI to dual-channel optical media)
■QLA2310 family (64-bit PCI-X to Fibre Channel copper media)
■QLA2310F family (64-bit PCI-X to Fibre Channel optical media)
■QLA2310FL family (64-bit PCI-X to Fibre Channel optical media, low profile)
■QLA2312F family (64-bit PCI-X to dual-channel Fibre Channel optical media)
■QLA2312FL family (64-bit PCI-X to dual-channel Fibre Channel optical media, low profile)
1.1
General Description
Thank you for selecting the QLA23xx Fibre Channel (FC) board. The QLA23xx board is an intelligent, high-performance, DMA bus master host adapter designed for high-end systems. The intelligence and performance are derived from the ISP2300/2310/2312 chips, making the QLA23xx board a leading-edge host adapter. The ISP2300/2310/2312 combines a powerful RISC processor, a Fibre Channel protocol manager (FPM) with one 2-Gb Fibre Channel transceiver, and a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) or peripheral component interconnect-extended (PCI-X) local bus interface in a single-chip solution. The QLA23xx board supports all FC peripherals that support private loop direct attach (PLDA) and fabric loop attach (FLA). Installation of the QLA23xx board is quick and easy.
1.2
What is Fibre Channel?
Fibre Channel technology is outlined in the SCSI-3 Fibre Channel Protocol (SCSI-FCP) standard. Fibre Channel is a high-speed data transport technology used for mass storage and networking. It connects mainframes, super computers, workstations, storage devices, and servers.
Fibre Channel supports data transfer rates up to 200 MBps half-duplex and
400 MBps full-duplex on copper and optical interfaces. The QLA2300 and QLA2310
