Smart cable for connecting storage drives
A smart cable for backplane storage management is provided. The cable may include a microcontroller, a power conditioning circuitry to regulate an input voltage from a power supply and provide an output voltage to the microcontroller, a storage device coupled to the microcontroller, a first end to be coupled to one or more storage devices, and a second end to be coupled to a storage controller. The microcontroller may receive sideband signals from the one or more storage drives, and may transmit connection topology information to the storage controller based at least in part on the sideband signals.
1 . A cable comprising:
a microcontroller;
a power conditioning circuitry to regulate an input voltage from a power supply and provide an output voltage to the microcontroller;
a storage device coupled to the microcontroller;
a first end to be coupled to one or more storage drives; and
a second end to be coupled to a storage controller;
wherein the microcontroller is to receive sideband signals from the one or more storage drives and to transmit connection topology information to the storage controller based at least in part on the sideband signals, and wherein the connection topology information includes at least one of a maximum number of storage drives that may be coupled to the first end and a number of electrical links supported for the respective storage drives, with the at least one of the maximum number of storage drives and the number of electrical links stored in the storage device.
2 . The cable of claim 1 , wherein the maximum number of storage drives that may be coupled to the first end is eight storage drives.
3 . The cable of claim 1 , wherein the connection topology information includes one or more drive types for the respective one or more storage drives coupled to the first end.
4 . The cable of claim 3 , wherein the one or more drive types include a nonvolatile memory express (NVMe) protocol, a serial AT attachment (SATA) protocol, and a serial attached small computer systems interface (SAS) protocol.
5 . The cable of claim 4 , wherein the number of electrical links supported for the respective storage drives includes information indicating that four electrical links are used per storage drive for storage drives using the NVMe protocol, one electrical link is used per storage drive for storage drives using the SATA protocol, and one or two electrical links are used per storage drive for storage drives using the SAS protocol.
6 . The cable of claim 1 , wherein the microcontroller is to communicate with the storage controller via a Universal Backplane Management protocol.
7 . The cable of claim 1 , further comprising one or more indicators to indicate a connection between the one or more storage drives and the storage controller.
8 . The cable of claim 7 , wherein the one or more indicators are light emitting diodes (LEDs).
9 . The cable of claim 1 , wherein the power conditioning circuitry provides an output voltage to at least one of the one or more storage drives and the storage controller.
10 . The cable of claim 1 , wherein the microcontroller is disposed within a shell of a plug connector of the cable.
11 . The cable of claim 1 , wherein the sideband signals comprise at least one of power control signals, reset signals, error and status indicators, temperature monitoring signals, clock and synchronization signals, and vendor-specific control signals.
12 . The cable of claim 1 , wherein the storage device is an electronically programmable read only memory (EPROM).
13 . A method comprising:
transmitting and receiving sideband signals to and from one or more storage drives that are coupled to a first end of a cable; and
transmitting connection topology information to a storage controller that is coupled to a second end of the cable to enable communication between the one or more storage drives and the storage controller, wherein the connection topology information includes at least one of a maximum number of storage drives that may be coupled to the first end and a number of electrical links supported for the respective storage drives, with the at least one of the maximum number of storage drives and the number of electrical links stored in a storage device.
14 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the maximum number of storage drives that may be coupled to the first end is eight storage drives.
15 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the number of electrical links supported for the respective storage drives includes information indicating that four electrical links are used per storage drive for storage drives using a NVMe protocol, one electrical link is used per storage drive for storage drives using a SATA protocol, and one or two electrical links are used per storage drive for storage drives using a SAS protocol.
16 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the connection topology information includes one or more drive types for the respective one or more storage drives coupled to the first end.
17 . The method of claim 16 , wherein the one or more drive types include a nonvolatile memory express (NVMe) protocol, a serial AT attachment (SATA) protocol, and a serial attached small computer systems interface (SAS) protocol.
18 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the communication between the one or more storage drives and the storage controller is via a Universal Backplane Management protocol.
19 . The method of claim 13 , further comprising indicating a connection between the one or more storage drives and the storage controller.
20 . The method of claim 19 , wherein one or more light emitting diodes (LEDs) are used to indicate the connection between the one or more storage drives and the storage controller.
21 . The method of claim 13 , further comprising:
regulating an input voltage from a power supply to generate an output voltage;
providing the output voltage to a microcontroller.
22 . The method of claim 21 , further comprising:
providing the output voltage to at least one of the one or more storage drives and the storage controller.
23 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the sideband signals comprise at least one of power control signals, reset signals, error and status indicators, temperature monitoring signals, clock and synchronization signals, and vendor-specific control signals.
24 . The method of claim 13 , wherein the storage device is an electronically programmable read only memory (EPROM).