STA Announces MultiLink SAS Connectivity Running at 96Gb/s

SCSI Trade Association (STA) announced the MultiLink SAS initiative with a presentation by Harry Mason and Marty Czekalski at the Flash Memory Summit last August 17.

                                 SAS Performance Improvements

The initiative’s purpose is to improve how slot-oriented Solid State Drive (SSD) devices can be configured to improve I/O performance. The externally-accessible backplane slot-based drive architecture will be fully compatible for use with existing SAS/SATA storage devices as well as new devices designed to achieve higher performance.

A new form-factor compatible connector will extend SAS to a 4-port configuration. When running at 12Gb/s, a single slot will be capable of providing up to 96Gb/s of bandwidth (full duplex). Additional signals will be provided for general purpose use within the same connector. The MultiLink SAS architecture is a slot-compatible implementation and will accommodate a variety of SSD form factors as well as existing Hard Disk Drives (HDDs).

Minimizing the impact to protocol changes makes MultiLink SAS primarily an enhancement to the existing connector. It was decided to maintain the existing Small Form Factor (SFF) slot dimensions for ease of refitting an existing system and for providing maximum system flexibility for storage OEMs.

"SAS continues to evolve with the addition of MultiLink SAS, which maximizes the performance inherent in low-latency storage devices, while preserving existing storage management investments, leveraging existing SAS infrastructure and exploiting the inherent parallelism of its architecture," said Harry Mason, President of STA and Director of Industry Marketing, LSI Logic Corp. "Providing slot compatibility with existing drive form factors satisfies a wide range of storage requirements without sacrificing the performance required for SSD devices."

"The concept for MultiLink originated earlier this year as a result of the need for greater speed and connectivity," said Marty Czekalski, Vice President and T10 Liaison for STA and Interface Architecture Initiatives Manager, Seagate Technology. "Slot performance is primarily determined by power and number of links for transferring data. MultiLink SAS delivers a far greater number of I/Os per second, using these connector improvements, without the need to change the SAS protocol," he added.

STA will be working with T10 and the Small Form-Factor (SFF) committee to standardize this latest SAS innovation.