Serial Attached SCSI speeds up to 12 Gbit/s. The physical SAS connector comes in several different variants: "Nearline SAS" (abbreviated to "NL-SAS", and sometimes called "midline SAS") drives have a SAS interface, but head, media, and rotational speed of traditional enterprise-class SATA drives, so they cost less than other SAS drives. When compared to SATA, NL-SAS drives have the following benefits: Serial Attached SCSI In computing, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is a point-to-point serial protocol that moves data to and from computer-storage devices such as hard drives and tape drives. SAS replaces the older Parallel SCSI (Parallel Small Computer System Interface, usually pronounced
Parallel SCSI of the standard has ever specified what kind of connector should be used. Specific types of connectors for parallel SCSI devices were developed by vendors over time. Connectors for serial SCSI devices have diversified into different families for each type of serial SCSI protocol. See the SCSI connector article for a more detailed description. Although parallel SCSI-1 devices typically used bulky Blue Ribbon Amphenol connectors, and SCSI-2 devices typically used Mini-D connectors, it is not correct to refer to these as "SCSI-1" and "SCSI-2" connectors. One valid rule is that connectors for wide SCSI buses have more pins and wires