iSCSI, twin-tailed disk, cheap-cheap fibre channel, ???

[Fraser Campbell]

William Park wrote:

>>* a SAN serves block devices, typically over fibre channel
>>
>>A client system mounting SAN disks can partition up those disks and 
>>format them however it sees fit, just like local disks effectively.
> 
> 
> - Is that what Network Block Devices supposed to do?  

Yes.

I had hoped to avoid needing a server for putting my disks on the 
network, but if it comes down to that I will. I have not tried NBD but 
since SuSE touts it as an HA feature for SLES 9, I do have some 
confidence that it would work as advertised.


> - Looking at kernel options, I also see 'ATA over Ethernet' option
>   Not sure how you would use them, though.

AoE is interesting, thanks for the reminder.  Basically AoE is a way of 
accessing disks over LAN, ATA commands are issued over ethernet (no IP 
layer involved).  I only see Coraid shipping AoE, would be nice to see 
some other vendors.

Coraid does sell a single storage blade for $295 (see 
http://www.coraid.com/purchase.htm).  I expect that it supports only a 
single disk, it's also (as they freely admit) not a nicely packaged product.

I would like a little external chassis with room for 2 disks, RAID 
support and exported to LAN with AoE.  I'll talk to Coraid and see if 
they have anything up their sleeve, I think one of these blades might be 
nice lying on my desk regardless ;-)
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