Short for host bus adapter. An HBA is an I/O adapter that sits between the host computer's bus and the Fibre Channel loop and manages the transfer of information between the two channels. In order to minimize the impact on host processor performance, the host bus adapter performs many low-level interface functions automatically or with minimal processor involvement.
An HBA, or Host Bus Adapter, is an interface card which connects a host or a storage device to a SAN (Storage Area Network).
An HBA can also be referred to as an "I/O controller"
April 13, 2012