Arria® V Device Handbook: Volume 2: Transceivers

ID 683573
Date 5/29/2020
Public
Document Table of Contents

4.8. SATA and SAS Protocols

Serial ATA (SATA) and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) are data storage protocol standards that have the primary function of transferring data (directly or otherwise) between the host system and mass storage devices, such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state disks.

These serial storage protocols offer several advantages over older parallel storage protocol (ATA and SCSI) interfaces:

  • Faster data transfer
  • Hot swapping (when supported by the operating system)
  • Thinner cables for more efficient air cooling
  • Increased operation reliability
Table 65.  Serial Data Rates for SATA and SAS Protocols
Protocol SATA (Gbps) SAS (Gbps)

Gen1

1.5

3.0

Gen2

3.0

6.0

Gen3

6.0

-

Figure 126. Configurations for the SATA and SAS ProtocolsIf you are configuring the SATA channel to support up to Gen3, set the base data rate to 6 Gbps and use the TX local clock divider to divide down to the Gen2 and Gen1 data rate.