SAS CONTROLLER WITH PERSISTENT PORT CONFIGURATION

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a SAS controller capable of maintaining consistent SAS port configurations across attached SAS device reboots, power cycles and chip resets.SOLUTION: Processor of SAS controller associates PHY with a port having a higher level communication mechanism, for example, associates PHY 304, 306 with a port 316, associates PHY 308 with a port 318, or associates PHY 310, 312, 314 with a port 320. The processor forms and associates two dynamic port groups 334, 336 with ports 300, 302 which are SAS devices. The processor automatically configures each PHY, stores the PHY configuration information on a memory. The processor, in the event a status of the PHY is modified, configures the PHY again according to the PHY configuration information stored in the memory.