(Serial Storage Architecture) A fault tolerant peripheral interface from IBM that transfers data at 80 and 160 Mbytes/sec. SSA uses SCSI commands, allowing existing software to drive SSA peripherals, which are typically disk drives. Using a ring architecture that supports up to 128 devices, if one fails, the remaining devices continue to run. SSA distances are 25 meters over copper and 2.4 kilometers over fiber. SSA was designed to provide an alternative to Fibre Channel, but has not been as widely used. See SAS and SCSI.