Abstract: A method to provide more opportunities to close a connection in an orderly fashion and avoid abrupt break of the connection. A device and a system operable to practice such as method.

Abstract: SAS devices provide an OPEN frame when requesting a connection or path to a device. An initiator connection tag value, preferably a 16-bit value, is included in this OPEN frame by the initiator. The initiator connection tag value is included by the target device when the target device reconnects to the initiator. The initiator can use this smaller value in a table lookup to rapidly and easily identify the target device, without requiring decoding of the 64-bit WWN and without waiting to receive a frame containing a tag from the target and decoding that tag.