Maxtor enjoys SCSI success

Storage solution provider Maxtor has announced that it has validated the operation of its Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface development by successfully changing SAS data packets between two prototype devices.

The news comes hot on the heels of the announcement that Microsoft has lent its support to the emerging iSCSI storage networking standard through the introduction of an upgrade to its Windows operating system.

SAS is a new disk and near cabinet interface that was developed as a follow on to the parallel SCSI interface. According to Maxtor, the interface is designed to improve storage system performance, scalability, and availability while providing compatibility with Serial ATA (SATA) disk drives.

"Maxtor engineers have quickly taken the SAS specification and applied it to concept hardware and firmware and demonstrated its functionality," says Kevin Wittmer, director of technical marketing for Maxtor's Server Products Group. "We are committed to leading the industry movement to this new generation of Serial storage architectures as we did with the Ultra2, Ultra160 and Ultra320 parallel interfaces."

One of the key benefits of SAS to IT managers is the level of configuration flexibility it provides, as SAS and SATA are complementary technologies that can be implemented together in a single storage enclosure.

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