Photosynthesis, for example, is a way that plants take energy from the abiotic environment and incorporate it into the biotic environment by synthesizing sugars and proteins from it. Other components of the biotic environment, such as herbivores, eat the plants and transfer the nutrients further along the chain.
Source: Adaptec. Backplanes are the fundamental building block to any storage appliance that is meant to support hot plugging. So, SAS expanders will always go hand in hand with powerful backplanes (whether these are in a single box or not).
Part of the Electronics glossary: A backplane is an electronic circuit board containing circuitry and sockets into which additional electronic devices on other circuit boards or cards can be plugged; in a computer, generally synonymous with or part of the motherboard. This was last updated in June 2005. Posted by: Margaret Rouse.