Adaptec Inc. has started work on a Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface in conjunction with several hard drive makers to help push the SCSI successor along.

Adaptec is working with Fujitsu, Maxtor, Seagate and Hitachi on various SAS testing efforts and co-marketing exercises. The companies also hope to make sure the SAS interface works well with both SAS and Serial ATA disk drives.

The SAS products should give users a host of benefits, including more compact storage systems and longer cabling distances for systems. Some estimates have SAS pushing single streams of data through at rates several times faster than its parallel predecessor.

Adaptec's SAS interface will let customers plug in either SAS or Serial ATA drives into the same backplane, letting users pick between different priced drives. The first product from Adaptec will ship data at 3 gigabits per second with a roadmap that extends out to 12 gigabits per second.

Various SAS products should arrive in demo from this year and begin rolling out with more force next year.

In a separate announcement, Adaptec said it has won $50 million in its case against Stephen Goldman, the former principal owner of DPT -- a company that worked on RAID technology.

Adaptec acquired DPT for $235 million in 1999 and then went after Goldman, claiming he misrepresented some information during the acquisition. An arbitrator ruled in favor of Adaptec on the claims and is expected to tack on extra for attorney's fees, costs and other damages, Adaptec says ®