HighPoint HBA 40-Port SATA 6 Gb/s Host Adapter

People hearing the word HBA might not have any idea what they are listening too, but for those that do know what it means it might come as a shock to learn of one with no fewer than 40 ports.

HBA is short for host bus adapter and refers to a piece of hardware that connects a host system (the computer) to other network and storage devices. SCSI, Fibre Channel and eSATA devices all can connect through such means, as can SATA HDDs and SSDs. As it happens, SATA storage devices are precisely what HighPoint thought of when it made the Rocket 750. The PCI Express add-in card has the ability to link 40 SATA HDDs of up to 4 TB capacity to a single computer. The board only has 10 actual connectors, four at the back (opposite the plaque that holds it in place against the case rear) and the other six on the top edge of the PCB. Each port can handle four drives though, thanks to Mini SAS cables. HighPoint has dubbed the Rocket 750 “the industry's lowest-cost mass SATA storage solution” and claims it “is ideal for applications that require huge levels of storage capacity such as data Libraries, archiving and backup solutions.”

The Intelligent Storage Health Management Suite manages the PCIe 2.0 x8 host interface and 40 device channels. All in all, the card should easily enough provide any computer, be it a PC, a business computer or server, with up to 160 TB of storage space. Nevertheless, customers will have to buy their own HDDs with industry-standard SFF-8087 Mini-SAS connectors, which will bring the cost of everything far higher than the price of the board itself, which happens to be $739 / 568.86 – 739 Euro. Sales should start this very month (April 2013).

HighPoint HBA
Image credits to HighPoint

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