SCSI协议旨在提供高效的对等I/O总线，其主机和外围设备的最大数量由总线宽度（8或16）决定。数据可以异步或同步传输，传输速率主要取决于设备实现和电缆长度。SCSI是一种I/O接口，可在多种介质和传输速率下运行。 本国际标准规定了与串行ATA物理互连兼容的串行连接SCSI（SAS）物理互连的功能要求。 它还指定了三种传输协议，一种用于传输SCSI命令，另一种用于将串行ATA命令传输到多个SATA设备，第三种用于支持接口管理。本标准旨在与SCSI和ATA命令集标准结合使用。

The SCSI protocol is designed to provide an efficient peer-to-peer I/O bus with the maximum number of hosts and peripherals determined by the bus width (8 or 16). Data may be transferred asynchronously or synchronously at rates that depend primarily on device implementation and cable length. SCSI is an I/O interface that may be operated over a wide range of media and transfer rates. This international standard specifies the functional requirements for the Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) physical interconnect, which is compatible with the Serial ATA physical interconnect. It also specifies three transport protocols, one to transport SCSI commands, another to transport Serial ATA commands to multiple SATA devices, and a third to support interface management. This standard is intended to be used in conjunctionwith SCSI and ATA command set standards.