ATTO Technology 2100R FibreChain Ports 2100 model only, 5 FibreChain Expansion, LED Indicators

ATTO Technology, Inc. ATTO FibreBridge Installation & Operation Manual

∙Single Ended Ultra SCSI – 40 MB/sec max per bus

∙High Voltage Differential (HVD) Ultra SCSI – 40 MB/sec max per bus

Each of the two ports is totally independent from the other. This means that each bus is capable of 15 devices and each bus is capable of 40/80 MB/sec (Ultra/Ultra2). There are a few advantages to this. First, you are able to use software striping to create a RAID 0 group that includes devices from both SCSI busses. This can effectively increase your overall performance to 80 MB/sec for Ultra SCSI or 100 MB/sec (the Fibre Channel bandwidth limit) for Ultra2 SCSI. Using ExpressRAID software from ATTO also gives you the ability to stripe hardware RAID controllers together. Another advantage is that each SCSI bus auto-negotiates the appropriate synch rates with the connected devices. If slower “Legacy” devices are mixed with faster Ultra2 devices, the bus will only communicate at the rate of the slowest device, wasting the performance capabilities of the faster devices. With the ATTO FibreBridge, it is possible to connect slower “Legacy” devices of one SCSI bus of the bridge while connecting faster devices on the second. Each bus can communicate at independent rates.

The ATTO FibreBridge supports a wide variety of SCSI storage devices including stand-alone drives, removable drives, JBODs, RAIDs, tape, CD and DVD drives, changers, and libraries, magneto optical drives, as well as Jaz and Zip devices.

FibreChain™ Ports (2100 model only)

The FibreChain expansion ports enable both the ATTO FibreBridge and ATTO FibreCenter (hub) Product Modules to be daisy chained together in the same arbitrated loop on a fixed cost per port basis, thus reducing total cost of ownership. The signal pin-out is different between standard Fibre Channel cables and FibreChain cables. ATTO Technology can provide the custom FibreChain cables for these ports.

The FibreChain ports are connected to the Fibre Channel ports on the same arbitrated loop internal to the bridge. When more than one FibreBridge is chained together, the loop is essentially being expanded. Two FibreChain ports are only necessary for chaining three or more bridges together.

FibreChain ports are limited in their functionality in that they do not re-time nor re-generate the signals like a standard Fibre Channel port does. Because of this, FibreChain cables are limited in distance to assure signal integrity.

Fibre Channel
Port
FibreChain	FibreChain
Port 2	Port 1

Figure 4.5 FibreChain Expansion

ATTO FibreChain™ Port LEDs (2100R model only)

There is a yellow LED adjacent to each ATTO FibreChain expansion port that will remain lit if the ATTO FibreChain expansion port is not being used (there is no connection to the port). When an expansion cable is connected and a link is established, the LED will go off. These LEDs will indicate cable connections only. They do not indicate cable signal activity.

LED Indicators

Power A, Power B – Two LEDs are used `to indicate if power is available from each of the two supplies. The ATTO FibreBridge only requires power from one of the sources in order to operate.

ATTO Technology, Inc.

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