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Difficulty: MediumStorage Devices and Interfaces

A technician is specifying storage components and external peripherals for an upcoming hardware deployment. Match each storage interface standard on the left with its defining operational or bandwidth characteristic on the right.

  • PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe M.2Delivers theoretical throughput up to ~7,000 MB/s using four PCIe lanes and low-latency queuing.
  • SATA Revision 3.0Capped at a theoretical maximum transfer rate of 600 MB/s over the AHCI protocol.
  • SAS-3 (Serial Attached SCSI)Provides 12 Gbps bandwidth with full-duplex dual-port support for enterprise server redundancy.
  • USB 3.2 Gen 2x2Offers an external transfer speed of 20 Gbps utilizing Type-C dual-lane operation.

Answer

PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe M.2 matches with throughput up to ~7,000 MB/s using four PCIe lanes; SATA Revision 3.0 matches with a maximum theoretical transfer rate of 600 MB/s under AHCI; SAS-3 matches with 12 Gbps bandwidth and dual-port enterprise redundancy; USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 matches with 20 Gbps external transfer speed over Type-C dual-lane operation.
Each storage standard correctly aligns with its characteristic bus bandwidth and design purpose: PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe achieves ~7,000 MB/s; SATA III caps out at 600 MB/s; SAS-3 provides 12 Gbps with dual-port enterprise redundancy; USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 provides 20 Gbps using dual-lane Type-C connection.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Determine the throughput capacity of PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe solid-state storage.
PCIe 4.0 provides ~2 GB/s per lane, giving a four-lane NVMe drive a peak throughput of ~7,000 MB/s.
Direct communication over the PCIe bus bypasses legacy SATA controller bottlenecks.
2
Identify maximum bandwidth limits for legacy SATA 3.0 drives.
SATA 3.0 operates at a 6 Gbps bus clock, resulting in a strict throughput cap of 600 MB/s.
AHCI protocol overhead and 8b/10b encoding cap maximum usable data rates.
3
Analyze enterprise SAS-3 controller features.
SAS-3 supports 12 Gbps throughput along with dual-port configuration capabilities.
Enterprise storage arrays require point-to-point dual-port redundancy for uninterrupted failover.
4
Evaluate the multi-lane specifications of USB 3.2 Gen 2x2.
USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 runs two 10 Gbps lanes simultaneously over Type-C cabling, delivering 20 Gbps total.
The 'x2' suffix specifically denotes dual-lane physical operation.

Key Concept

Storage Devices, Interface Bandwidth, and Bus Protocols
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Topics

Storage Devices and Interfaces

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