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May connect to SATA devices, either directly connected using native SATA protocol or through SAS expanders using Serial ATA Tunneling Protocol (STP).Feature dual ports, allowing for redundant backplanes or multipath I/O.Allows a transfer speed 3, 6 or 12 Gbit/s on each initiator-target connection.Allows up to 65,535 devices through the use of expanders, while Parallel SCSI has a limit of 8 or 16 devices on a single channel.Has no termination issues and does not require terminator packs.If one initiator is connected to one target, there is no opportunity for contention with parallel SCSI, even this situation could cause contention. Each SAS device is connected by a dedicated link to the initiator, unless an expander is used. The SAS bus operates point-to-point while the SCSI bus is multidrop.(*) S8 through S14 are no-connects on single-port implementations Advantages of SAS over parallel SCSI SAS SFF-8482 internal connector pinout Pin
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There are more than six different physical SAS connectors variants. The reverse, connecting SAS drives to SATA backplanes, is not possible. This allows the connection of SATA drives to most SAS backplanes or controllers. SAS replaces the older Parallel SCSI (Parallel Small Computer System Interface) and, like its predecessor, uses the standard SCSI command set. SAS offers optional compatibility with Serial ATA (SATA), versions 2 and later.
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