Host Bus Adapter (HBA)

A host bus adapter (HBA) is a printed circuit board and/or integrated circuit adapter that provides input/output (I/O) processing and physical connectivity between a host or server system. with storage and/or network devices. Since HBA typically eases the host processor’s data retrieval and storage tasks, it can improve server uptime. An HBA and its associated disk subsystems are sometimes referred to as a disk channel.
HBA is usually defined by connection technology, speed, number of ports and system interfaces. The HBA is sometimes referred to as the HBA tag. HBA cards typically plug into the server’s PCI Express (PCIe) slot. Other HBA form factors include mezzanine cards for blade servers.
Although the term HBA applies to many types of connections, it is most commonly used with storage protocols such as Fiber Channel (FC) and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). SAS HBA is a type of small computer system interface (SCSI) HBA, but the term SCSI HBA is no longer widely used. SCSI HBA is often combined with parallel SCSI, a once popular data transfer technology that has been largely replaced by faster SAS. Other types of adapters that can connect a host system to a storage and/or network device include:

Network Interface Card (NIC):

Allows connection and data transmission between servers and network devices on an Ethernet network. Other names include Ethernet adapter and Ethernet network adapter. iSCSI Adapter (also known as iSCSI HBA or iSCSI NIC): Provides storage area network (SAN) connectivity over TCP/IP and Ethernet network infrastructure, and offloads iSCSI and TCP processing /IP for the adapter to speed up performance. Converged Network Adapter: Combines the function of FC HBA and Ethernet TCP/IP network card; support LAN and FC SAN traffic. Host Channel Adapter (also known as InfiniBand Adapter): Enables lossless low-latency data communication between servers and storage on the InfiniBand network; also used as a server-to-server connection when the server is used for both hosting and application hosting. Use cases include high-performance computing, data analytics, cloud data centers, and large-scale web and business applications. Remote Direct Memory Access over Converged Ethernet NIC (also known as

NIC with RoCE):

Facilitates direct data transfer between the application memory of different servers without CPU involvement , to accelerate performance on lossless Ethernet networks. Supports faster data transfer than Ethernet network card. Commonly used in financial networks, highly transactional databases, content storage and distribution. Fiber Channel Server Bus Adapter
HBA Fiber Channel allows connection and data transmission between devices in FC SAN. FC HBA can connect a storage server to a switch or storage device, connect multiple storage systems, or connect multiple servers when the server is used as both an application server and a storage system. . The SAN management software recognizes the HBA as the connection point.
FC HBA manufacturers often update their products based on the increase in data rates of FC network technology. Fiber Channel products were first available in 1997. FC HBA advanced with speeds of 1 gigabit per second (Gbps), 2 Gbps, 4 Gbps, 8 Gbps, and 16 Gbps (also known as Generation 5. or Gen 5). The FC roadmap expands to 32 Gbps (Gen 6) and 128 Gbps, using parallel FC to split up four 32 Gbps FC lanes and create a 128 Gbps link. The initial use case for 128 Gbps FC should be the interconnect between switches.

FC HBA manufacturers often enhance their products with additional features when updating to new generations of FC technology. Improvements over the years have included data integrity to prevent network corruption in database environments and extended virtualization support to increase virtual server density.
The main manufacturers of FC HBA in the market are QLogic and Emulex. (Avago Technologies announced an agreement to acquire Emulex on February 24, 2015.) Other FC HBA manufacturers include Atto Technology.
HBA’s distinguishing features include performance, reliability, security, power requirements, server virtualization support, and single-tier management software availability.

SCSI adapter/SCSI HBA adapter

SCSI adapters, or SCSI HBAs, support connectivity and data transfer between a server and a device or storage system as defined by the US National Standards Institute’s SCSI standard for computer connectivity ./S. A pluggable HBA typically initiates and sends service and task management requests to a target device, such as a disk or storage array, and receives a response from the destination. The terms SCSI adapter and SCSI HBA usually refer to parallel SCSI, the predecessor to SAS.
Parallel SCSI devices are connected to a common bus. A maximum parallel SCSI speed of 320 megabytes per second (MBps) is considered too slow to meet the needs of modern computing systems, and performance often degrades as new devices are added to the shared bus. . Parallel HBA SCSI is considered obsolete technology. Major manufacturers have stopped producing parallel SCSI HBAs.
SAS was developed to address the limitations of traditional parallel SCSI and to enable higher-speed data transfers to and from computer storage devices. Like parallel SCSI, SAS uses the SCSI instruction set, but the way data is transferred is different. SAS is a point-to-point serial data transport protocol. The advent of SAS introduced new terminology to describe adapters, cables, and connectivity options.

HBA SAS

A SAS HBA typically connects a server or workstation to a storage device such as a hard disk drive, solid state drive, JBOD device, or tape drive. SAS HBA can connect to single port or dual port storage devices compatible with Serial ATA or SAS interface. Vendors such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM sell entry-level storage arrays that support SAS SAN fabric and allow direct connection to SAS HBA-equipped servers. These entry-level SAS storage arrays eliminate the need for network switching.
A SAS HBA can also connect to a SAS switch to enable connectivity between multiple servers and external storage. The use of dial-up SAS is not as common as direct SAS HBA-based connections between the server and the storage array.
SAS bandwidth starts at 3 Gbps and goes up to 6 Gbps and 12 Gbps. Each new generation of SAS has also brought