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HDD Interface Technologies

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HDD Interface Technologies HDD Interface Technologies V Masakazu Kawamoto (Manuscript received July 1, 2005) The interfaces of hard disk drives (HDDs) have been changed to serial interfaces to meet the demands for high-speed data transfer. The main interfaces involved are the Fibre Channel (FC), Serial ATA (SATA), and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). Up to now, the HDD market segments corresponded to the serial interfaces that were available. Be- cause of the recent demands for cost reduction, however, requests are being made for serial interfaces optimized for the use of the HDD units. As a result, the HDD market segments have become fractionalized, and the correspondence between the market segments and serial interfaces has also been lost. For example, products in which a conventional low-end SATA and a large-capacity HDD are combined have begun to appear on the market as enterprise HDDs. This paper describes the features of these serial interfaces and the interface technologies of the HDD controller that enables serialization of the interfaces. It also discusses the technological problems of future HDD interfaces and their solutions. 1. Introduction future problems in this field. Note that in this All of the interfaces used in computer paper, we use the terms “interface” and “HDD systems have been changed from parallel trans- body” to distinguish between the interface of an mission to serial transmission. The main cause HDD and the HDD’s platters, heads, motor, of this change has been the demand for faster control circuit, and remaining components. interfaces. This applies even to the interfaces of hard disk drives (HDDs). In the latter half of the 2. Interfaces for HDDs 1990s, a Fibre Channel (FC)1) having a transfer HDDs are used in many different places for rate of 1 Gb/s (100 MB/s) was put into practical many different purposes. Different interfaces use as the serial interface of HDDs. Then, a have therefore been developed to meet this diver- Serial ATA (SATA)2) having a transfer rate of sity. The AT Attachment (ATA) interface4) was 1.5 Gb/s was produced in 2003, and a Serial developed for the internal HDDs of desktop PCs, Attached SCSI (SAS)3) having a transfer rate of while Small Computer System Interface (SCSI)5) 3 Gb/s was produced in 2004. Since it produced was developed for servers and large-scale storage its first FC HDD in 1998, Fujitsu has been devel- systems. Now, these parallel interfaces are being oping and providing SATA and SAS HDDs to meet replaced to meet the demands for higher speeds. the demands of its customers. SCSI is being replaced with FC and SAS, while This paper describes the features of these ATA is being replaced with SATA. Moreover, serial interfaces and the interface technologies of because the uses of HDDs are also expanding, in- the HDD controller that enables serialization of terfaces to meet these new uses are also being the interfaces. It then discusses some of the developed. Table 1 lists the main HDD interfac- 78 FUJITSU Sci. Tech. J., 42,1,p.78-92(January 2006) M. Kawamoto: HDD Interface Technologies Table 1 HDD interfaces. Interface name˜ ATA/IDE˜ SATA˜ SATA-2˜ SCSI˜ SAS˜ FC-AL˜ Command˜ ATA˜ ATA˜ ATA/ATAPI˜ SCSI˜ SCSI˜ SCSI˜ Specification/date˜ ATA-7, 2001/11˜ Rev.1, 2001/8 ˜ Rev.1, 2002/8˜ SPI-5, 2002/5˜ Rev.5, 2003/7˜ Rev.7, 1999/4˜ Volume production date˜ Now˜ 2002˜ 2005˜ Now ˜ 2004˜ Now˜ Transfer speed˜ 66, 100, 133 MB/s˜ 1.5 Gb/s˜ 1.5, 3 Gb/s˜ 160, 320 MB/s˜ 3, 6 Gb/s˜ 1, 2, 4, (8) GB/s˜ Cable/link displacement˜ 0.5 m˜ 1 m˜ 7 m˜ 25/12 m˜ 0.5 m/10 m˜ 30 m/10 km˜ HOT pluggable˜ Not available˜ Available˜ Available˜ Not available˜ Available˜ Available˜ Connector˜ 40 pin˜ 7+15 pin˜ 7+15 pin˜ 80 pin˜ 7+15 pin˜ 40 pin˜ Number of drives˜ 2˜ 1˜ 1 ˜ 16˜ 16256 ˜ 126˜ Topology˜ String˜ Point-to-point˜ Point-to-point˜ String˜ Star (Expander)˜ Loop,Star (Switch)˜ TRX power consumption˜ Lowest˜ 300 mW˜ 300 mW˜ High˜ 300 mW˜ 300 mW˜ Speed expandability˜ Limited˜ Available˜ Available˜ Limited˜ Available˜ Available˜ Multi-initiator˜ Not available˜ Not available˜ Not available˜ Available˜ Available˜ Available˜ Queuing limit˜ 32˜ 32˜ 32˜ No limitation˜ No limitation˜ No limitation˜ Dual-port configuration˜ Not available˜ Not available˜ Not available˜ Available˜ Available˜ Available˜ Arbitration˜ No˜ No˜ No˜ Yes˜ Yes˜ Yes˜ Impact (loop)˜ Impact on other˜ Yes˜ No˜ No˜ devices at port failure˜ Yes˜ No˜ No (S/W)˜ Interface’s˜ With In BOX˜ With In BOX˜ With In BOX˜ In/Out BOX˜ In/Out BOX˜ In/Out BOX˜ characteristics ˜ PC/consumer Replace ATA˜ PC/tier storage SVR/RAID Replace SCSI˜ JBOD/SBOD˜ and application PC/consumer SVR/RAID High-end RAID es. The following sections describe the features balance and failure avoidance are possible. of the four types of serial interfaces, including the Generally, the protocols of serial interfaces CE-ATA6) currently being developed. have a hierarchical structure (Table 2). The user protocol layer is positioned at the 2.1 FC highest layer of the FC. The FC can support The FC interface combines the characteris- multiple types of protocols such as the SCSI ˜ tics of a data channel, for example, high-speed command protocol and Internet protocols (IPs) transfer, and the features of a network, for using a single FC network. SCSI is used for the example, a wide range of connections. The link HDD connections. FC is therefore multifunction- transfer rate of the FC interface was originally al. However, this versatility makes the FC 1 Gb/s (100 MB/s), increased to 2 Gb/s, and is interface complicated. To reduce this complexity, currently 4 Gb/s. A transfer rate of 8 Gb/s is only the FC functions required for the HDD currently being investigated. This link supports connection are selected and used when an FC simultaneous bidirectional communications with interface is used for HDD connections. These se- independent sending and receiving operations. lected function specifications are collectively Figure 1 shows the topologies (connection forms) referred to as a profile. PLDA7) and FLA8) are rep- of FC units. resentative of such profiles. The basic topologies are point-to-point, star The FC interface is used to connect multiple centered around Fabric, and loop, and these three HDDs in high-performance storage systems. Be- can be combined to construct other topologies. cause high reliability is also demanded from these Because the mesh form has multiple routes, load high-performance systems, HDD bodies with an FUJITSU Sci. Tech. J., 42,1,(January 2006) 79 M. Kawamoto: HDD Interface Technologies FC interface are designed with emphasis on high protocol similar to that of FC (Table 2). The SAS performance and high reliability. link has a bidirectional speed of 3 Gb/s. There are two types of topologies: point-to-point and star 2.2 SAS centered on an Expander. Because the SAS link SAS is an exclusive HDD interface that com- shares part of the link layer Primitive with SATA, bines a simple SATA link and a layer control SAS can share the link and Expander with SATA devices. The SCSI command set is used for disk control. Because the functions have been restrict- Node Node ed from the start for use as an exclusive HDD Link interface, SAS is a simpler interface than FC. (a) Point-to-point (b) String HDD bodies combined with the SAS interface are identical to those of conventional SCSI HDDs. 2.3 SATA SATA was developed with the single aim of (c) Tree (d) Loop serializing the parallel ATA interface. The SATA is a very simple interface; it supports only point- to-point connections and has limited functions, for example, it has no function for specifying drive addresses. Because the 1.5 Gb/s SATA link han- (e) Star (f) Mesh (network) dles Primitive interlock control (described later), frames cannot be sent and received simultaneous- Figure 1 Topology. ly. The ATA command set is used for disk control. The SATA interface was therefore developed and produced to replace the ATA interface of ATA Table 2 Protocol layer structure. Interface ˜ SCSI˜ FC˜ SAS˜ ATA˜ SATA˜ Layer SCSI application ˜ Device command ˜ Command˜ SCSI-3˜ SCSI-3˜ layer˜ ATA˜ layer˜ SCSI-3˜ ATA˜ Transport layer ˜ FC-4˜ Frames˜ Mapping˜ ˜ –˜ SCSI-FCP˜ COMMAND/TASK/˜ –˜ –˜ XFER_RDY/DATA/˜ RESPONSE˜ FC-2˜ Bus phase˜ Port layer˜ Interface operation˜ Protocol˜ Primitives / Frames / ˜ Bus sequence˜ Service /˜ Frames ˜ Register definition˜ Frame (FIS) ˜ Bus condition˜ Flow control˜ Protocol (PIA/DMA)˜ Phys & link layer˜ 8B/10B code /˜ Signal line˜ FC-1˜ 8B/10B code / OOB˜ Signal line˜ Link˜ Bus timing˜ 8B/10B code ˜ Scramble ˜ Primitives / CRC /˜ Bus timing˜ Primitives / CRC˜ Address frame˜ FC-0˜ Connector˜ Connector˜ Connector˜ Connector˜ Connector˜ Cable˜ Cable˜ Cable˜ Cable˜ Physical Cable˜ Electrical˜ Electrical ˜ Electrical ˜ Electrical characteristic˜ Electrical ˜ characteristic characteristic characteristic OOB signaling characteristic 80 FUJITSU Sci. Tech. J., 42,1,(January 2006) M. Kawamoto: HDD Interface Technologies HDDs that were developed as internal HDDs for In the case described above, the SATA and use in desktop and notebook PCs. Recently, how- FC interfaces are not compatible, so an interface ever, the SATA interface has also begun to be used converter is needed to connect a large-capacity for enterprise HDDs as described below. SATA HDD to an FC network in a storage system. To eliminate the need for a converter, an 2.4 CE-ATA HDD that was originally designed as a SATA HDD CE-ATA supports point-to-point connections has been modified to replace SATA interface to using an MMC link9) and sends serial data and FC interface for FC tier storage systems.
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