12Gb SAS Interface at Forefront of 13th SCSI Trade Association Plugfest Event

With a focus on the emerging 12 Gb/s SAS storage interface that provides a road map to higher performance, the SCSI Trade Association (STA) announced the completion of the 13th Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Plugfest held August 20-24, 2012, at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL).

STA is a member-run industry association established to support and promote SCSI technology. Twenty-one companies, including both STA members and nonmembers, participated in the event.

"This was the first Plugfest event that took a deep look at 12 Gb/s SAS capabilities and the various 12 Gb/s SAS connections emerging in the marketplace," said Marty Czekalski, president of the SCSI Trade Association and Interface and Emerging Architecture Program manager, Seagate. "12 Gb/s SAS addresses the explosive growth of data in cloud and enterprise datacenters by doubling the bandwidth of current 6 Gb/s SAS solutions while offering investment protection through compatibility and interoperability with previous generations of SAS."

Plugfests have provided the means to preserve existing storage investments, deliver a favorable end-user experience, demonstrate interoperability and support both forward and backward compatibility.

STA expects the release of 12 Gb/s SAS products in production volumes in 2013.

13th STA Plugfest Highlights:
In addition to bringing together the next generation product components for standardized testing, no Plugfest can be successful without the latest generation SAS testing and analyzer equipment.

It was also highlighted by the following activities:

Physical level testing of 12 Gb/s SAS technology
Interoperability testing of SFF-8680 dual port 12 Gb/s SAS backplane connectors
Testing of SFF-8630 MultiLink SAS and the SAS portion of the SFF-8639 multifunction backplane connectors
Compatibility testing of host and SSD and HDD target devices linking up and running at 12 Gb/s SAS

"It was exciting to see 12 Gb/s SAS technology deliver the performance to support increased scaling of traditional HDDs as well as unlock the full potential for enterprise solid-state storage devices," said Mike Fitzpatrick, Engineering Fellow, Toshiba America Electronic Components and chairperson of the SAS Plugfest Technical Committee. "The capability to maximize link utilization and the connectivity improvements supported by 12 Gb/s SAS are also particularly notable."

The following companies
attended the August 2012 Plugfest: