What are the key drawbacks of SAS-2?
Schulz: The drawback is, one, an awareness issue. There’s a perception that SAS is DAS. Probably the big issue is that DAS is seen as only being dedicated, internal, direct-attached storage. It can be that. But you also have arrays from HP, IBM, Dell, Oracle/Sun, where you can have a SAS array that can be shared by two, four, eight or more servers. Call it a SAS SAN if you like. I think the big drawback is, one, the lack of awareness around it as an option. And you could say that on a scale-out basis, it can’t scale, in terms of connectivity, like Fibre Channel. Well, yeah, you’re comparing apples to oranges.[ It’s the] same thing with iSCSI to Fibre Channel or SAS to iSCSI. They’re apples-to-oranges-to-grapefruit-type discussions. They have their different plays, and they can coexist very, very nicely.
