SFF-8088 cable with heavy- duty metal backshells

The R1MSAS is a 1U RAID Rack that accomodates as many as four 3.5 SATA hard drives (or 2.5" SATA hard drives using Addonics Snap-In 25 adatper), which are connected to a mini SAS bridge mounted on the back of the unit. All four drives are connected to a system equipped with a mini SAS connector (SFF-8088) via a single mini SAS cable. The integrated Snap-In bay provides the convenience in adding or removing drives directly like tape cartridges from each bay without any special tool.  Mini Serial Attached SCSI (mini SAS) Internal Cable Assemblies provide for high speed transmission up to 6 Gbps. It is an ideal interconnect solution for the growing server and storage market. Mini SAS are designed to significantly reduce the cable size for storage systems currently using SAS 4-lane (4x or 4-lanes of data) and are being widely adopted for next-generation designs.External SAS Cable features "mini-SAS" SFF-8088 to SFF-8088 cable with heavy- duty metal backshells. This 4-channel cable is constructed with a high-performance cable, which features individually shielded parallel pairs, double EMI/RFI shielding, EMI Noise Suppressor. Mini SAS was developed to support data rates at 6.0 Gbps in order to meet theongoing industry requirement for higher speed and greater bandwidths, This data rate is achieved via the use of high speed differential signals. One assembly is designed to support up to four channels of transimit and recieve.

This QSFP+ connector is a 38 position 0.8mm pitch surface

The QSFP connector is a 38 position 0.8mm pitch surface mount connector, available in pocket tape for pick and place application. This connector is part of the TE Connectivity (TE) EVERCLEAR product family, which also includes connectors designed for Mini-SAS/SATA applications. It is designed for high speed signal integrity.
QSFP copper cable assemblies are a low cost option for short-reach applications. TE is releasing both active and passive cable assemblies to support Fiber Channel, Infiniband, and Ethernet protocols. The backshells include a positive latching system and cables feature a pull-to-release tab.TE' PARALIGHT active optical QSFP+ cable assemblies use state-of-the-art technology to provide cost effective high data throughput. The cables incorporate E/O and O/E conversion built into the connector shell to yield a dramatic improvement in PCB real estate utilization.This QSFP+ transceiver supports link lengths for either 40 Gigabit Ethernet or high density 10 Gigabit Ethernet applications up to 100 meters using OM3 fiber or 150 meters using OM4 fiber. These modules are designed to operate over multimode fiber systems using QSFP-4SFP1​0G-CU1M – Compatible Cisco QSFP+/4SFP​+ Copper Cable Breakout, 1 Meter a nominal wavelength of 850nm. The electrical interface uses a 38 contact edge type connector. The optical interface uses an 8 or 12 fiber MTP? (MPO) connector. This module incorporates Avago Technologies proven integrated circuit and VCSEL technology to provide reliable long life, high performance, and consistent service.

Panduit SFP+ Passive DAC cable assemblies may not be compatible

The connector has an integrated EEPROM with information populated in registers that is provided to the active equipment when queried through an I2C bus Most active equipment port allow for nterchangeable types of me to be plugged into its ports. The registers in the EEPROM provide a method for the connector to identify itself as an SFP+ Passive DAC to allow the active equipment to operate in the proper mode. Other information contained in the memory reg.The Panduit SFP+ 10 Gb/s Direct Attach Passive and Active Cable Assemblies are MSA, SFF-8431, SFF-8432 and SFF-8472 compliant, which means they are compatible with all active equipment with MSA compliant ports.
Unfortunately, Panduit SFP+ Passive DAC cable assemblies may not be compatible with equipment built with non-MSA compliant or non up-to-date ports. Additionally, some equipment vendors may utilize a lock-out mechanism by requiring vendor specific information on the EEPROM ocated on the SFP+ Passive DAC assembly connector. This was originally implemented to ensure authorized ptical transceivers were used with a particular vendor’s equipment, and now some equipment vendors have implemented similar requirements for SFP+ DAC cable assemblies as well.

SFF-8088 cables look like four 7-pin cables were sheathed

The server in question is DELL PowerEDGE SC1435. I am thinking about buying a LSI 1068e based card with two internal SFF-8087 ports. I intend to use the machine with external multiple hard disk enclosure as a ZFS based file server. I would connect the card with SFF-8088 bracket (assume the length of 0.5m). Another SFF-8088 cable bracket on a hard disk enclosure should fan out to 4x SATA ports with intention to be used with sata disks (assume the length of 0.5m). What would be the maximum recommended length of the external SFF-8088 to SFF-8088 cable?12 hard drives, attached by a single SFF-8088 cable -- looks attractive! I've seen user reports on the web that say this combo works amazingly well.The SFF-8088 connector is a very widely used connector type that is commonly used today on SAS cards.

SFP+ Cables do only optical to electrical conversion

XENPAK was the first MSA for 10GE and had the largest form factor. X2 and XPAK were later competing standards with smaller form factors. X2 and XPAK have not been as successful in the market as XENPAK. XFP came after X2 and XPAK and it is also smaller.The newest module standard is the enhanced small form-factor pluggable transceiver, generally called SFP+ Cables. Based on the small form-factor pluggable transceiver (SFP) and developed by the ANSI T11 fibre channel group, it is smaller still and lower power than XFP. SFP+ has become the most popular socket on 10GE systems.10gtek SFP+ Cables do only optical to electrical conversion, no clock and data recovery, putting a higher burden on the host's channel equalization. SFP+ modules share a common physical form factor with legacy SFP modules, allowing higher port density than XFP and the re-use of existing designs for 24 or 48 ports in a 19" rack width blade.

SFP 1.25Gb/s bi-directional data links Hot-pluggable

The Olson Model OTOLS-85-0.5 SFP 1.25Gb/s 850nm Multimode Small Form Pluggable (SFP) Fiber Optic Transceiver is compatible with gigabit Ethernet and 1000BASE-SX. The SFP module may be swapped in the field. The link incorporates an 850nm VCSEL laser transmitter and an integrated GaAs detector preamplifier (IDP). The transceiver can operate up to 550m over 50/125μm multimode fiber or 300m over 62.5/125μm multi SFP Features Up to SFP 1.25Gb/s bi-directional data links Hot-pluggable SFP footprint Build-in digital diagnostic functions 1310nm Fabry-Perot laser transmitter Duplex LC connector RoHS compliant and Lead Free Up to 10 km on 9/125μm SMF Metal enclosure for lower EMI Single 3.3V power supply Low power dissipation <600mW typical Industrial operating temperature range: -40°C to 85°C Finisar FTLF1318P3BTL duplex SFP transceiver is simultaneously compatible with Gigabit Ethernet, and 1.063 Gb Fibre Channel.  Finisar FTLF1318P3BTL transceiver has a maximum reach of 10km at a data rate of 1.25 Gbps.