Comparing fibre channel, serial attached SCSI (SAS) and serial ATA (SATA)

Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), Serial ATA (SATA) and Fibre Channel (FC) are the main storage interconnect technologies at present. FC is the main interconnect in Storage Area Network (SAN) with a well-known high performance and strong foundation of SCSI. SATA is the most cost-effective and high capacity in the hard drive market. On the other hand, SAS is just picking-up the momentum in both storage and hard drive areas and positions itself as a potential player. All three of these technologies have their own strengths and weaknesses and also their own targeted markets. The following paper will show the analysis of their abilities and the comparison of their strengths and weaknesses in different areas and categories. The main objective is to allow readers to have a better understanding of these storage interfaces and their potentials in their future markets by comparing their performances in different realistic scenarios.