Interface expansion device and method

Abstract

The present invention proposes an interface expansion device and method, wherein the device includes: multiple expansion nodes, each expansion node includes an upstream interface and at least two downstream interfaces; wherein the upstream interface is preset with a first communication protocol and is connected to communicate with at least two downstream interfaces, at least one downstream interface is reserved in the downstream interface for cascading with the upstream interfaces of other expansion nodes and communicating with the first communication protocol, and the remaining downstream interfaces are preset with a conversion protocol of the first communication protocol as an expansion interface. The interface expansion device or method of the present invention not only has strong expansion performance, but also avoids compatibility issues between boards, and for the host, the device accessed through the downstream interface will appear as a standard third communication protocol device, and the upstream host can access the device through the standard third communication protocol driver provided by the operating system, without the need to develop additional host driver software, which facilitates the expansion of the device.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present invention relates to the technical field of computer communications, and in particular to an interface expansion device and method. Background Art

[0002] In the storage field, the NVMe (NVM Express, non-volatile memory host controller interface specification) interface based on PCIe (peripheral component interconnect express, a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard) continues to grow stronger, and the market share of the SAS interface (Serial Attached SCSI, serial attached SCSI interface) and the SATA interface (SerialATA, serial ATA) continues to be eroded, especially in the flash memory field; however, in terms of magnetic media storage (HDD, mechanical hard disk), SAS and SATA still dominate. According to IDC's forecast, by 2025, HDD (mechanical hard disk) shipments will still be ahead of SSD (solid state drive) due to its cost advantage, and HDD hard disks with SATA interface will occupy the absolute majority.

[0003] In terms of interface expansion, the NVMe interface can be expanded through the local PCIe switch chip or a dedicated network (NVMe-oF). However, the SATA interface is generally dependent on the SAS interface. In terms of disk expansion, you first need to convert the PCIe bus to the SAS bus protocol through a RAID card or HBA card, and then connect more disks through the SAS expander. Although this method has the advantage of flexible expansion, it still has the following defects:

[0004] 1. Due to the low performance requirements of HDD, the utilization rate of SAS interface supporting high bandwidth is low and the cost performance is not high;

[0005] 2. The compatibility and interoperability between RAID / HBA cards and SAS Expander from different manufacturers is poor. Generally, RAID / HBA cards and SAS Expander can only be products from the same manufacturer.

[0006] Another way to expand the SATA interface is to use a dedicated port multiplier device to achieve expansion, but expansion through port multipliers also has the following defects:

[0007] 1. There is no wide interface support (SAS Expander support), and it can only be expanded downward through the X1 lane through the portmultiplier;

[0008] 2. Multiple port multipliers can be cascaded to expand the disk downward in a single lane, but a maximum of 15 SATA disks can be expanded;

[0009] 3. Port Multiplier has been declining for a long time. The optional chips are relatively rare, and generally only 5 to 7 interfaces are supported.

[0010] From the above analysis, it can be seen that the two commonly used SATA interface expansion solutions currently have obvious defects, and in the face of the increasing number of PCIe devices, SATA disks are not conducive to the control and management of upstream PCIe devices. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a SATA interface expansion device or method that can comprehensively solve the above technical problems. Summary of the invention

[0011] To solve the above technical problems, in one aspect of the present invention, an interface expansion device is proposed, comprising: a plurality of expansion nodes, each of the expansion nodes comprising an upstream interface and at least two downstream interfaces; wherein the upstream interface is preset with a first communication protocol and is communicatively connected with the at least two downstream interfaces, at least one of the downstream interfaces is reserved for cascading with the upstream interfaces of other expansion nodes and communicating with the first communication protocol, and the remaining downstream interfaces are preset with a conversion protocol of the first communication protocol as an extended interface.

[0012] In one or more embodiments, the expansion node includes: a first communication protocol expansion chip, configured to provide an upstream interface and at least two downstream interfaces; and an interface conversion module, the interface conversion module is preset with a conversion protocol of the first communication protocol, and is configured to communicate and connect with at least one downstream interface of the first communication protocol expansion chip as a SATA interface for external expansion.

[0013] In one or more embodiments, the extension node further includes: a dual-mode interface; the dual-mode interface is respectively connected to the interface conversion module and other downstream interfaces of the first communication protocol extension chip, and serves as an external extension interface.

[0014] In one or more embodiments, the interface conversion module is configured to connect multiple devices; the devices include a mechanical hard disk having a second communication protocol interface.

[0015] In one or more embodiments, the dual-mode interface configuration is used to connect multiple second communication protocol devices or first communication protocol devices; the second communication protocol device includes a mechanical hard disk with a second communication protocol interface; the first communication protocol device includes a solid state drive or other expansion node with a third communication protocol interface.

[0016] In one or more embodiments, the interface expansion device includes a multi-layer cascade relationship, and each layer has a plurality of expansion nodes.

[0017] In one or more embodiments, the extension node is a field programmable gate array module, and the field programmable gate array module is preset with a first communication protocol and a conversion protocol of the first communication protocol.

[0018] In a second aspect of the present invention, an interface expansion method is proposed, the method comprising: receiving multiple signals from multiple downstream interfaces in parallel through an upstream first communication protocol bus, the multiple signals including a second communication protocol signal and a third communication protocol signal; forwarding the third communication protocol signal to the upstream first communication protocol bus to cascade other first communication protocol devices; converting multiple second communication protocol signals into third communication protocol signals and sending them to the upstream first communication protocol bus so that the multiple downstream interfaces that receive the second communication protocol signals serve as second communication protocol expansion interfaces.

[0019] In one or more embodiments, the multiple downstream interfaces obtain the multiple signals through multiple dual-mode interfaces.

[0020] In one or more embodiments, the other first communication protocol device includes: a processing module; and a storage module, wherein the storage module stores an executable computer program, and the computer program is used to implement the steps of the second communication protocol interface expansion method as described in claim 8 or 9 when executed by the processing module.

[0021] The beneficial effects of the present invention include: through the interface expansion device or method of the present invention, not only does it have strong expansion performance, but it also avoids compatibility issues between boards and cards. For the host, the device accessed through the downstream interface will appear as a standard third communication protocol device. The upstream host can access the device through the standard third communication protocol driver that comes with the operating system, and there is no need to develop additional host driver software, which facilitates the expansion of the device. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0022] In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings required for use in the embodiments or the description of the prior art will be briefly introduced below. Obviously, the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present invention. For ordinary technicians in this field, other embodiments can be obtained based on these drawings without paying creative work.

[0023] Figure 1 It is a structural schematic diagram of a SATA interface expansion device of the present invention;

[0024] Figure 2A schematic diagram of the topological structure of a first embodiment of a SATA interface expansion device of the present invention;

[0025] Figure 3 A schematic diagram of the topological structure of a second embodiment of a SATA interface expansion device of the present invention;

[0026] Figure 4 The following is a flowchart of the SATA interface expansion method of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0027] In order to make the objectives, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more clearly understood, the embodiments of the present invention are further described in detail below in combination with specific embodiments and with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0028] It should be noted that all expressions using "first" and "second" in the embodiments of the present invention are for distinguishing two non-identical entities with the same name or non-identical parameters. It can be seen that "first" and "second" are only for the convenience of expression and should not be understood as limitations on the embodiments of the present invention. The subsequent embodiments will not explain this one by one.

[0029] Figure 1 FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the structure of a SATA interface expansion device of the present invention. Figure 1 As shown, the SATA interface expansion device of the present invention includes: multiple expansion nodes, each of which includes an upstream interface and at least two downstream interfaces; wherein the upstream interface is preset with a PCIe communication protocol and is communicatively connected with the at least two downstream interfaces, at least one downstream interface is reserved among the downstream interfaces for cascading with the upstream interfaces of other expansion nodes and performing PCIe communication, and the remaining downstream interfaces are preset with an NVMe-SATA conversion protocol as extended SATA interfaces.

[0030] In this embodiment, each expansion node has at least two downstream interfaces, one of which is directly mounted on the upstream interface, and the other needs to be converted through the NVMe-SATA conversion protocol, and after converting the SATA signal into an NVMe signal, it is sent to the upstream interface in the form of an NVMe signal. The upstream interface with a preset PCIe communication protocol can be considered as a PCIe bus, or an interface that can communicate with the PCIe bus and is preset with a PCIe communication protocol.

[0031] Compared with the prior art, the embodiment of the present invention avoids the compatibility problem between SAS Expander (SAS board) and HBA board or RAID board, and for the upstream host connected to the upstream interface, the device accessed through the downstream interface will appear as a standard NVMe device. The upstream host can access the device through the standard NVMe driver provided by the operating system, without the need to develop additional host driver software, thereby greatly facilitating the expansion of related equipment.

[0032] In one implementation, the SATA interface expansion device of the present invention is used for disk expansion, and the expanded disk can be an SSD hard disk using an NVMe interface, or an HDD hard disk using a SATA interface. Among them, the SSD hard disk using the NVMe interface can be directly mounted on the upstream interface through the first downstream interface, while the HDD hard disk using the SATA interface needs to be converted through the second downstream interface through the NVMe-SATA conversion protocol, and after converting the SATA signal into an NVMe signal, it is sent to the upstream interface in the form of an NVMe signal.

[0033] In some embodiments, the expansion node of the present invention can be constructed by using a variety of chips or modules, and the specific forms are as follows:

[0034] In one embodiment, the expansion node includes: a PCIe expansion chip, configured to provide an upstream interface and at least two downstream interfaces; and an NVMe-SATA interface conversion module, the NVMe-SATA interface conversion module is preset with an NVMe-SATA conversion protocol, and is configured to communicate and connect with at least one downstream interface of the PCIe expansion chip as a SATA interface for external expansion.

[0035] In a further embodiment, the NVMe-SATA interface conversion module includes a PCIe EP submodule, an NVMe-target interface submodule and a SATA controller. The NVMe-target interface submodule is used to obtain SATA signals under the control of the SATA controller and convert the SATA signals into NVMe signals; the PCIe EP submodule is used to obtain NVMe signals and send them to the corresponding downstream interface of the PCIe expansion chip.

[0036] In this embodiment, the NVMe-SATA interface conversion module can be used as an externally extended SATA interface to connect multiple SAS devices, such as a HDD hard disk with a SATA interface. The downstream interface of other PCIe expansion chips that are not connected to the NVMe-SATA interface conversion module can be used to connect other PCIe devices.

[0037] In another implementation, the expansion node also includes a PCIe-SATA dual-mode interface, which is respectively connected to the NVMe-SATA interface conversion module and other downstream interfaces of the PCIe expansion chip, and serves as an external expansion interface. In this embodiment, the addition of the PCIe-SATA dual-mode interface makes the expansion node appear to have a multifunctional interface. Accordingly, the PCIe-SATA dual-mode interface can be used to connect multiple SAS devices or PCIe devices, such as a HDD hard disk with a SATA interface, an SSD hard disk with an NVMe interface, or other expansion nodes.

[0038] In other implementations, the expansion node can be an FPGA module, in which case the FPGA module will be preset with a PCIe communication protocol and an NVMe-SATA conversion protocol. Optionally, the FPGA module can selectively convert the signal transmitted from the downstream interface using the NVMe-SATA conversion protocol or directly forward it to the upstream port. Optionally, the expansion node also includes a PCIe-SATA dual-mode interface for use as an external expansion interface.

[0039] In another optional embodiment, the FPGA module can also dynamically allocate bandwidth according to the type of signal received by the PCIe-SATA dual-mode interface; specifically, a wider bandwidth is allocated to the interface that receives PCIe signals and NVMe, and a relatively smaller bandwidth is allocated to the interface that receives SATA signals. Through this embodiment, the SATA interface expansion device of the present invention can effectively solve the problem of low bandwidth utilization of the downstream port due to the low transmission performance requirements of the device connected to the downstream interface.

[0040] In the two implementation methods of the expansion node given in the above embodiments, the method of building through multiple chips or modules has the advantages of low cost, easy construction and good scalability, while the method of implementing through FPGA modules has flexible configuration, and its downstream port can be configured with a variety of other communication protocols and PCIe communication protocol conversion protocols, thereby realizing the expansion of devices with a variety of other interface types. However, no matter which implementation method of the expansion node is adopted, since the upstream interface adopts the PCIe communication method, it will have a strong expansion capability.

[0041] In the following implementations, several topological structures consisting of a plurality of interconnected expansion nodes will be given, and the expansion capability of the present invention will be described in combination.

[0042] Figure 2 FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the topological structure of the first embodiment of the SATA interface expansion device of the present invention. Figure 2As shown, taking a PCIe Gen5 expansion chip with 64 Lanes as an example, considering the bandwidth characteristics of SATA HDD (i.e. HDD hard disk with SATA interface), the upstream bandwidth of X8 is selected (8 Lanes are required), that is, 8 Lanes can be accessed simultaneously for each read and write.

[0043] The expansion nodes connected to the host CPU, RAID board or HBA board are recorded as the first layer. In the first layer, there is an expansion node, 8 Lanes are configured as upstream interfaces, and 48 Lanes are configured as SATA expansion interfaces. At most 48 SATA HDDs can be connected. The remaining 8 Lanes are connected to the upstream interface of an expansion node in the second layer respectively. One expansion node in the second layer can connect 48 SATA HDDs, and the remaining 8 Lanes are connected to one expansion node in the third layer. And so on. Each additional layer of expansion nodes can expand 48 SATA interfaces.

[0044] Figure 3 FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the topological structure of the second embodiment of the SATA interface expansion device of the present invention. Figure 3 As shown, in this embodiment, unlike the solution of expanding SATA interfaces at each layer in the previous embodiment, the expansion nodes at each layer are used to connect other expansion nodes, and the SATA interfaces are expanded through the expansion nodes at the last layer. The device is composed of 3 layers of expansion nodes, 7 expansion nodes will be connected to the second layer, and 7×7 expansion nodes will be connected to the third layer. Each expansion node can expand 56 SATA interfaces at most. Therefore, the expansion nodes at the third layer can expand 49×56, which is equal to 2744 SATA interfaces.

[0045] It should be noted that the above two embodiments are only used to illustrate the expansion capability of different topological structures of the SATA interface expansion device of the present invention, but they do not impose any quantitative restrictions on the present invention. Among them, each expansion node can use a PCIe expansion chip with more Lanes, and the uplink bandwidth can also be arbitrarily set according to needs, such as X4 or X16.

[0046] The SATA interface expansion device of the present invention also has the following beneficial technical effects, including:

[0047] 1. For SATA expansion scenarios, compared with the Port Multiplier that only supports X1 (under the SATA3 protocol, each Lane supports up to 6Gbps bandwidth), it provides a larger upstream bandwidth (PCIe Gen3 / 4 / 5 of X4 / X8 / X16);

[0048] 2. For SATA expansion scenarios, compared with the maximum expansion of 15 disks per lane of Port Multiplier, it provides hundreds or even thousands of expansion disks;

[0049] 3. To solve the compatibility issues between RAID / HBA cards and SAS Expander caused by different manufacturers, fully transparent and seamless expansion is achieved through PCIeSwitch.

[0050] In a second aspect of the present invention, a SATA interface expansion method is also proposed. Figure 4 FIG. 4 is a flowchart of the SATA interface expansion method of the present invention. Figure 4 As shown, the SATA interface expansion method of the present invention includes: step S1, receiving multiple signals from multiple downstream interfaces in parallel through an upstream PCIe bus, the multiple signals including SATA signals and NVMe signals; step S2, forwarding the NVMe signal to the upstream PCIe bus to cascade other PCIe devices; step S3, converting the multiple SATA signals into NVMe signals and sending them to the upstream PCIe bus so that the multiple downstream interfaces that receive the SATA signals serve as SATA expansion interfaces.

[0051] In a further embodiment, the multiple downstream interfaces obtain the multiple signals through multiple PCIe-SATA dual-mode interfaces.

[0052] In a further embodiment, the other PCIe device in the above embodiment comprises: a processing module; and a storage module, wherein the storage module stores an executable computer program, and the computer program is used to implement the steps of the SATA interface expansion method in the above embodiment when executed by the processing module. In an optional embodiment, the PCIe device is an FPGA.

[0053] In the above implementation, the present invention receives SATA signals through the downstream interface, converts the SATA signals into NVMe signals and sends them to the upstream interface, thereby avoiding the compatibility problem between SAS Expander (SAS board) and HBA board or RAID board, and the NVMe signal complies with the PCIe protocol, so that the upstream interface can directly use the PCIe protocol to communicate with the upstream host, thereby making the SATA device expanded by the SATA interface expansion device of the present invention appear as a standard NVMe device to the upstream host, and then can access each NVMe device through the standard NVMe driver provided by the operating system, without the need to develop additional host software drivers, which can facilitate the expansion of SATA devices; and, since the PCIe bus has a large bandwidth, multiple SATA devices and multiple expansion nodes can be mounted under the expansion node that communicates with the upstream host.

[0054] The above are exemplary embodiments disclosed in the present invention, but it should be noted that various changes and modifications may be made without departing from the scope disclosed in the embodiments of the present invention as defined in the claims. The functions, steps and / or actions of the method claims according to the disclosed embodiments described herein do not need to be performed in any particular order. In addition, although the elements disclosed in the embodiments of the present invention may be described or required in individual form, they may also be understood as multiple unless explicitly limited to the singular.

[0055] It should be understood that, as used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly supports an exception. It should also be understood that, as used herein, "and / or" refers to any and all possible combinations including one or more of the associated listed items.

[0056] The serial numbers of the embodiments disclosed in the above embodiments of the present invention are only for description and do not represent the advantages or disadvantages of the embodiments.

[0057] A person skilled in the art should understand that the discussion of any of the above embodiments is only exemplary and is not intended to imply that the scope of the disclosure of the embodiments of the present invention (including the claims) is limited to these examples; under the concept of the embodiments of the present invention, the technical features in the above embodiments or different embodiments can also be combined, and there are many other changes in different aspects of the embodiments of the present invention as above, which are not provided in detail for the sake of simplicity. Therefore, any omissions, modifications, equivalent substitutions, improvements, etc. made within the spirit and principles of the embodiments of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the embodiments of the present invention.

Claims

1. An interface expansion device, characterized in that: include: A plurality of extension nodes, each of the extension nodes comprising an uplink interface and at least two downlink interfaces; The uplink interface is preset with a first communication protocol and is communicatively connected with the at least two downlink interfaces, at least one of the downlink interfaces is reserved for cascading with the uplink interfaces of other extended nodes and communicating with the first communication protocol, and the remaining downlink interfaces are preset with a conversion protocol of the first communication protocol as extended interfaces; Wherein, the expansion node includes: a first communication protocol expansion chip, configured to provide an upstream interface and at least two downstream interfaces; and an interface conversion module, the interface conversion module is preset with a conversion protocol of the first communication protocol, and is configured to communicate and connect with at least one downstream interface of the first communication protocol expansion chip as an externally extended SATA interface; a dual-mode interface, the dual-mode interface is respectively connected to the interface conversion module and other downstream interfaces of the first communication protocol expansion chip, and serves as an external expansion interface; the expansion node is also configured to allocate a wider bandwidth to the dual-mode interface that receives PCIe signals and NVMe, and allocate a relatively less bandwidth to the dual-mode interface that receives SATA signals; the dual-mode interface is configured to connect multiple second communication protocol devices or first communication protocol devices; the second communication protocol device includes a mechanical hard disk with a second communication protocol interface; The first communication protocol device includes a solid state drive or other expansion node having a third communication protocol interface. Among them, the first communication protocol includes the PCIe protocol, and the conversion protocol includes the NVMe-SATA conversion protocol.

2. The interface expansion device according to claim 1, characterized in that: The interface conversion module is configured to connect multiple devices; The device includes a mechanical hard disk having a second communication protocol interface.

3. The interface expansion device according to claim 1, characterized in that: The interface expansion device includes a multi-layer cascade relationship, and each layer has a plurality of expansion nodes.

4. The interface expansion device according to claim 1, characterized in that: The extension node is a field programmable gate array module, and the field programmable gate array module is preset with a first communication protocol and a conversion protocol of the first communication protocol.

5. An interface expansion method based on the interface expansion device according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that: The method comprises: Receiving multiple signals from multiple downlink interfaces in parallel via an uplink first communication protocol bus, the multiple signals including a second communication protocol signal and a third communication protocol signal; Forwarding the third communication protocol signal to the uplink first communication protocol bus to cascade other first communication protocol devices; Converting a plurality of the second communication protocol signals into a third communication protocol signal and sending it to the uplink first communication protocol bus so that a plurality of downlink interfaces receiving the second communication protocol signal serve as a second communication protocol extension interface; The multiple downstream interfaces obtain the multiple signals through multiple dual-mode interfaces; the first communication protocol includes a PCIe protocol, and the conversion protocol includes an NVMe-SATA conversion protocol; The method also includes allocating a wider bandwidth to an interface that receives a PCIe signal and NVMe, and allocating a relatively smaller bandwidth to an interface that receives a SATA signal.

6. The interface expansion method according to claim 5, characterized in that: The other first communication protocol devices include: a processing module; and A storage module, wherein the storage module stores an executable computer program, and when the computer program is executed by the processing module, it is used to implement the steps of the second communication protocol interface expansion method as claimed in claim 5.

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