Serial Attached SCSI and SATA System Level Compatibility Will Benefit Industry OEMs, System Builders and Customers

Server I/O 2003, Monterey, CA, January 20, 2002 – The SCSI Trade Association (STA), a member-run consortium established to support and promote SCSI technology, and the Serial ATA (SATA) II Working Group, whose mission is to define, develop and deliver SATA specifications to the industry, announced today they have formed a collaborative agreement for enabling Serial Attached SCSI system-level compatibility with SATA hard disk drives. The collaboration will result in unprecedented system configuration capabilities with multiple benefits to system builders and IT professionals.

System builders will be able to utilize a common infrastructure and choose from a wider range of product options, meeting basic to highly complex storage requirements. For the first time, storage systems will be readily customizable to meet specific application workloads and price points. IT professionals and users will be able to configure simplified and flexible systems. Ultimately, customers will have choices that allow them to optimize their applications to achieve a balance of performance, reliability, and total cost of ownership.

The physical compatibility between Serial Attached SCSI and Serial ATA will facilitate efficiencies in terms of how the broader storage market is served, while extending existing SCSI investments,” said Harry Mason, president of the STA board of directors and director of industry marketing at LSI Logic.

“The common high-speed serial architectures of the technologies should allow the two industry groups to enable unprecedented user choice,” said Jason Ziller, chairman of the SATA II Working Group and Intel technology initiatives manager. “The SATA II Working Group is excited about the possibilities that this compatibility provides for cost-sensitive servers and network storage applications.”

A technical subcommittee consisting of members of the SATA II Working Group and the INCITS T10 committee will meet to determine what, if any, specification changes are needed to meet the compatibility goals. In addition, a marketing team has been formed with members from both the STA and SATA II Working Group to define joint activities moving forward.

The compatibility definition will take full advantage of serial technology and will enable the use of either SATA or Serial Attached SCSI disk drives in Serial Attached SCSI host systems. Serial Attached SCSI and SATA technologies contain serial point-to-point interconnections, increased addressability and the ability to scale to small form factors. Serial Attached SCSI systems that support SATA hard disk drives are expected to be available in 2004. SATA systems are available today.

About STA
The SCSI Trade Association was established in 1995 to provide a focal point for members to communicate the benefits of SCSI to the industry. STA promotes the understanding and use of SCSI technology and influences the evolution of SCSI standards to meet future industry needs. As of January 2002, STA supports and promotes Serial Attached SCSI as well as Parallel SCSI. The Association has an eight-member Board of Directors, which oversees Marketing Communications, Technology Committees and all STA activities. For more information, please visit the STA web site at http://www.scsita.org, send an email to info@scsita.org, call the STA office at (415) 561-6273 or send a fax to (415) 561-6120.

About the SATA II Working Group
The Serial ATA II Working Group is an industry organization whose mission is to define, develop and deliver the industry specification for the Serial ATA interface. Visit www.serialata.org for more information about the Serial ATA II Working Group as well as the Serial ATA Working Group.

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