Host adapter

Fibre Channel host bus adapter (a 64-bit PCI-X card)[clarification needed]
SCSI host adapter (a 16-bit ISA card)

In computer hardware a host controller, host adapter or host bus adapter (HBA) connects a computer system bus which acts as the host system to other network and storage devices.[1] The terms are primarily used to refer to devices for connecting SCSI, SAS, NVMe, Fibre Channel and SATA devices.[2] Devices for connecting to FireWire, USB and other devices may also be called host controllers or host adapters.

Host adapters can be integrated in the motherboard or be on a separate expansion card.[3]

The term network interface controller (NIC) is more often used for devices connecting to computer networks, while the term converged network adapter can be applied when protocols such as iSCSI or Fibre Channel over Ethernet allow storage and network functionality over the same physical connection.

  1. ^ "Host Adapter". Technopedia. Retrieved 2 July 2019.
  2. ^ Rouse, Margaret; Sliwa, Carol (April 2015). "host bus adapter (HBA)". SearchStorage. TechTarget. Retrieved 2 July 2019.
  3. ^ "Host adapter". Computer Hope.