Power management for host bus adapters

摘要

Methods and apparatus for reducing power consumption in a host bus adapter (HBA) are provided. The methods include reducing a number of active lanes in an HBA link when link traffic is low, and increasing the number of active lanes when link traffic is high.

主权项

1. A method of allocating bandwidth in a link connecting an adapter with another device in a storage area network (SAN), the method comprising:
a) evaluating an input/output (I/O) request relating to a data transfer between a host system and a storage device in the SAN; b) determining an amount of data that will be transferred at a given time, including data associated with the I/O request; and c) enabling or disabling lanes of the link based on the amount of data that will be transferred at the given time, including the data associated with the I/O request; wherein when link traffic is below a first limit, a first number of lanes are enabled, and more lanes are enabled when the link traffic increases above the first limit.