1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to expandable backplanes, and particularly to an expandable backplane capable of switching between a standalone structure and a Daisy-chain structure.
2. Description of Related Art
An Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) expandable backplane may include a number of expansion boards. The expand structures of the SAS expandable backplane include a standalone structure and a Daisy-chain structure. In the standalone structure, each expansion board of the expandable backplane is connected to a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) via a Mini-SAS Cable, and the SAS expansion boards are not connected to each other. In the Daisy-Chain structure, the SAS expansion boards in the expandable backplane are connected to each other via Mini-SAS Cables. If an electronic device needs both of the standalone structure and the Daisy-chain structure, two different expandable backplanes are needed to be designed, which is inconvenient.
Therefore, what is needed is an expandable backplane which can overcome the above-mentioned problem.
Many aspects of the present disclosure should be better understood with reference to the following drawing. The components in the drawing are not necessarily drawn to scale, the emphasis instead being placed upon clearly illustrating the principles of the present device. Moreover, in the drawing, like reference numerals designate corresponding components throughout the views.
Embodiments of the present disclosure are described with reference to the accompanying drawing.
In this embodiment, the SAS expandable backplane 10 includes a first expansion board 11, a second expansion board 12, a multiplexer 13, and a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) 14. The BMC 14 is used to connect with a number of disks, such as SAS and/or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) drives.
The first expansion board 11, the second expansion board 12, and the BMC 14 are all connected to the multiplexer 13. In this embodiment, the multiplexer 13 includes a General Purpose Input Output (GPIO) port 131 to detect a GPIO signal that is changeable between a high level and a low level. In this embodiment, the GPIO signal is determined according to a connecting state of the Mini-SAS Cable 101 which is connected between the first expansion board 11 and the second expansion board 12. In detail, if the Mini-SAS Cable 101 between the first expansion board 11 and the second expansion board 12 is disconnected, and the GPIO signal is at a high level. In this embodiment the high level is logic 1. If the first expansion board 11 is connected to the second expansion board 12 via the Mini-SAS Cable 101, that is, the Mini-SAS Cable 101 is connected, and the GPIO signal is at a low level. In this embodiment, the low level is logic 0.
The multiplexer 13 controls the second expansion board 12 to be connected to the BMC 14 via the first expansion board 11, or controls the second expansion board 12 to be disconnected from the first board 11 and directly connected to the BMC 14 according to the detected GPIO signal.
The expandable backplane 10 can automatically switch between the standalone structure and the Daisy-Chain structure according to the connecting state of the Mini-SAS Cable 101 connected between the first expansion board 11 and the second expansion board. Thus, when an electronic device needs both of the Daisy-Chain structure and the standalone structure, there is no need to design two different expandable backplanes.
Although the present disclosure has been specifically described on the basis of exemplary embodiments thereof, the disclosure is not to be construed as being limited thereto. Various changes or modifications may be made to the embodiments without departing from the scope and spirit of the disclosure.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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102108743 | Mar 2013 | TW | national |