from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
Serial Storage Architecture
<storage> (SSA) IBM's proposed ANSI standard for a standard
high-speed interface to disk clusters and arrays. SSA allows
{full-duplex} {packet multiplexed} serial data transfers at
rates of 20Mb/sec in each direction.
According to John Taylor, programme manager at IBM's Storage
Division at Havant, SSA will be used in arrays of discs
working with high-end computers ranging from mainframes down
to LAN servers. Taylor said that SSA differs from the {IEEE}
proposed {P1394} serial interface specification in its ability
to offer simultaneous multiplexed transfers from more than one
disk or array. IBM also supports the P1394 standard which
will be used primarily by desktop PCs for {multimedia}
applications.
SSA has received backing from a number of companies including
connector makers Molex, ITT Cannon and AMP, disk drive makers
Conner and Western Digital and RAID array suppliers like
Dynatech and NCR. IBM expects to see the first SSA products
released at Comdex in Autumn 1994 but it will be 1995 before
the products ship in volume.
Under an agreement signed with {ASIC} maker and {ARM} licencee
{VLSI Technology}, IBM will use ARM-based chips made by VLSI
to implement the SSA interface and VLSI will make these cores
available to third parties as one of its Functional System
Blocks.