FMS: Inaugural 24G SAS Plugfest Completed by SCSI Trade Association Highlights Investment Protection of Proven Storage Interface

The SCSI Trade Association (STA) announced the successful completion of its 18^th SAS plugfest, the first for the 24Gb SAS storage interface standard that consists of the SAS-4 and SPL-4 protocol layers.

Sas Roadmap

SAS is a proven and sustainable platform that provides investment protection using existing data center infrastructure and tools. The plugfest was held June 25-27, 2019, at Austin Labs, Inc., Milpitas, CA, an independent provider of broad-based testing and standards conformance services.

“As demonstrated through successful vendor product interoperability tests at this inaugural 24G SAS plugfest, SAS remains an excellent investment,” said Jeremiah Tussey, VP, STA, and manager, product marketing, data center solutions business unit, Microchip Technology, Inc. “The groundwork for introducing 24G SAS products aligned with the next generation of server platforms has now been laid.“

Inaugural 24Gb SAS plugfest was highlighted by following activities:

Interoperability of 24Gb SAS products in a realistic working environment of the standard as specified
In-depth testing of both SAS-4 and SPL-4 protocol and electrical specifications, including:
- - backwards compatibility with 12Gb SAS SSDs and HDDs
  - successful traffic end-to-end, 24Gß SAS with Forward Error Correction (FEC)
  - link up and transmitter training algorithm exercised
  - 24Gb SAS analyzer and exerciser verification
Successful interoperability testing with packetization, including:
- - verification that SAS Expanders make use of DWORDS (a Windows data type definition) to packet conversion (i.e. supports 12Gb to 24Gb SAS, 24Gb to 12Gb SAS)
  - demonstration of double effective SAS bandwidth loading and PCIe bandwidth
Testing of 0.5 to 4-meter passive cable lengths, various interconnects and backplanes, including:
- - multiple vendor cables and interconnect
  - long and short channels
  - cable EEPROM identification/access
  - Mini SAS HD and SlimSAS 24Gb connectors

“This event was a great opportunity for participating companies to validate their respective 24G SAS products using standardized testing and interoperability methods,” said Cameron T. Brett, president, SCSI Trade Association, and director, outbound marketing and communications, Toshiba Memory America, Inc. “SAS plugfests have consistently provided a verification method to preserve existing storage investments, deliver a favorable end-user experience, demonstrate interoperability and support both forward and backward compatibility.“

Following companies attended inaugural 24Gb SAS plugfest to provide initial specification verification support:

To learn more about why SAS Rules the Data Center, attend the STA theatre presentation at the Flash Memory Summit, on August 8, 2019 in Santa Clara, CA.