With all 16 SAS ports able to function at full speed, the result is the capability to saturate an x8 PCIe 3.0 connection with full bandwidth. The 8GB/s provided by the x8 PCIe 3.0 connection is before the overhead is taken into consideration. After overhead, this leaves us with the 6400MB/s of deliverable bandwidth.
The key to packing all of the ports onto the controller is the progression from the standard MiniSAS connection to the HD MiniSAS specification. These cables provide a smaller connector, which allows 16 ports to be crammed into the limited PCB space.
Adaptec also provides right-angle HD MiniSAS cables for 1U server applications.
MaxCrypto is a removable encryption key that plugs directly into the HBA. The key holds the encryption keys, and if there were an adaptor failure, reconstitution of the data simply requires pairing the key and the drives with another Adaptec HBA.
This new solution is the first application of encryption in the HBA market. This provides an extra layer of data protection in a number of scenarios. The physical key is advantageous, removing the need for key management expertise or software. From a pure data protection standpoint, this feature will provide some ease of mind from data theft.
This protection also comes into play when drives are retired. Many times retiring drives requires extensive overwrite operations followed by physical destruction of the drive by contractors. These steps ensure data destruction, but can incur additional OpEX expenses. Retiring encrypted drives is simpler; the encoded data is worthless without the encryption key. This eliminates lengthy overwrite sessions and drive destruction expenses.