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Fibre Channel Interface Manual, Rev. D 1
1.0 Publication overview
This publication provides some general information about Fibre Channel as well as detailed information about
how Seagate disc drives implement Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop technology.
This publication will continue to be revised as Fibre Channel technology advances and as Seagate Fibre
Channel drives change to meet data storage needs.
You will observe that many references are made to SCSI throughout this publication. This is because Fibre
Channel transports the SCSI command set. This concept is discussed in more detail throughout this publica-
tion beginning in Chapter 2.
1.1 Acknowledgements
The information contained in this publication was gathered from many sources. Portions of the text used to
explain general Fibre Channel concepts were adapted in various forms, with permission, from Ancot Corpora-
tion’s Fibre Channel, Volume 1: The Basics written by Gary R. Stephens and Jan V. Dedek. Additional informa-
tion was contributed by Canadian Valley Vocational-Technical instructor Chuck Chalupa.
1.2 How to use this manual
This publication provides a universal detailed description of the Fibre Channel interface for Seagate disc
drives. You may read it from front-to-back, or turn directly to the sections that interest you the most. A glossary
is provided in the back (see Appendix A) which you may find useful as you read this manual.
Note. Volume 1 Product Manuals have tables that specify which SCSI features are implemented in each
specific drive model, what the default parameters are for the various features they implement, and
which parameters are changeable and which are not.
No method exists at present to inform an initiator if a target supports SCSI-3 features as opposed to only SCSI-
2 features. A few SCSI-3 features are supported by Seagate drives, but no attempt has been made herein to
differentiate between SCSI-2 and SCSI-3 features. Therefore, when an Inquiry command reports what the
ANSI-approved version of the drive is, it reports SCSI-2, where SCSI-2 means SCSI-2 features plus some
SCSI-3 features.
No attempt is made in this universal specification to specify which descriptions or tables apply to SCSI-2 or
SCSI-3. The combination of this general specification with the details in the individual drive’s Product Manual,
Volume 1, provides a description of the individual drive implementation of the SCSI interface.
This interface manual is not intended to be a stand-alone publication about Fibre Channel’s features. You
should reference the individual drive’s Product Manual to determine the specific features supported by each
drive model.
This specification is Volume 2 of a set of manuals that is made up of a separate drive Product Manual, Volume
1, and this manual. This Volume 2 manual is referenced by the Volume 1 Product Manual for Seagate Fibre
Channel disc drives.