Nearline SAS or NL-SAS drives are enterprise SATA drives that offer a native SAS interface. NL-SAS
drives support dual I/O ports allowing for redundant data paths, a faster interface compared to SATA
and the ability to support the SCSI command set.
Fibre Channel defined
Fibre Channel technology is outlined in the SCSI-3 Fibre Channel Protocol (SCSI-FCP) standard. Fibre
channel is a high-speed data transport technology that is used for mass storage and networking.
Using a Fibre Channel arbitrated loop (FC-AL), more than 100 fibre-channel devices can be supported,
compared to 15 small computer system interface (SCSI) devices.
Operating system support
For supported operating systems, see the latest System README file and the IBM DCS3700 product at
the following Web site for additional host operating system support:
www.ibm.com/systems/support/storage/config/ssic/index.jsp
See “Finding Storage Manager software, controller firmware, and README files” on page xviii to learn
how to access the DCS3700 README files on the Web.
2 IBM System Storage DCS3700: Installation, User, and Maintenance Guide