Abstract: Disclosed are techniques for allowing an increase in topology size of a serial attached SCSI expander network, as well as limiting entries in content addressable memory that are used to store address locations relating to the system topology. In accordance with one method, addresses are provided in the OAF request to reduce lookup table entries. In accordance with another embodiment, address ranges are provided in the lookup table. In addition, virtual memory techniques are used, so that either a software lookup process can be used, or a hardware process can be used, so that only the most recently used addresses are stored in the lookup table.