User`s guide

Configuration Scenarios 1-5

failure. You can select the data backup method that best suits your

needs. A hardware RAID assist exclusive-OR (XOR) engine speeds

parity generation and checking and reduces system-access times.

The SAS RAID controllers integrate eight high-performance SAS/SATA II

PHYs and a PCI Express bus master DMA core. Each of the eight PHYs

is capable of 6.0 Gb/s SAS link rates and 3.0 Gb/s SATA II link rates.

The LSISAS2108 ROC device adheres to the PCI Express Specification,

Revision 2.0. The PCI Express software is backward compatible with

previous revisions of the PCI bus and PCI-X bus.

The SAS RAID controllers support the SAS protocol as described in the

Serial Attached SCSI Standard, version 2.0. The controllers also support

the Serial ATA II (SATA II) protocol defined by the Serial ATA

Specification, Version 1.0a and the Serial ATAII; Extension to the Serial

ATA Specification, Version 1.1. SATA II is an extension to SATA 1.0a.

In addition, the SAS RAID controllers support the following SATA II

features:

• 3Gb/s SATA II

• Staggered spin-up

• Hot plug

• Native command queuing

• Activity and fault indicators for each PHY

• Port selector (for dual-port drives)

Each port on the SAS controllers supports SAS devices, SATA II devices,

or both using SSP, SMP, STP, and SATA II. SSP enables communication

with other SAS devices. SATA II enables the SAS controllers to

communicate with other SATA II devices.

1.4 Configuration Scenarios

There are three main scenarios in which you can use the SAS RAID

controllers:

• Low-end, internal SATA II configurations: In this configuration, use

the RAID controller as a high-end SATA II compatible controller that