potential to go beyond the disk to become the basis of a network storage fabric. Before vendors offer this option, understand the potential SAS has to give and also the limitations the enterprise needs to consider.

What Is SAS?

SAS is a serial communications protocol for Direct-Attached Storage (DAS) devices such as hard disk drives. Serial communications allow SAS to have lower communications overhead and much higher data transfer speeds than traditional parallel SCSI, which it is designed to succeed. However, SAS continues to use the familiar SCSI command set.

SAS is also backward-compatible with SATA, allowing for SAS and SATA disks to co-exist in the same system. SATA is generally a lower cost but lower performance option. For more information, refer to the Info-Tech Advisor research note, "Cut Through the SAS vs. SATA Debate." Compatibility means that SAS and SATA can be mixed for tiered storage within an array.