Comments on: Fibrechannel Target Mode

By: SanGod

SanGod — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 02:35:14 +0000

I played with the Open-E demo for a while, it is VERY refined but I hate the idea of not being able to present a lun down multiple iSCSI targets. I don’t know if the Fibrechannel works any different.. But I’m not going to put anything I need to keep on it until I have a copy that doesn’t expire.

By: tim

tim — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 22:06:43 +0000

If you’ve used netapp, it’s definitely a familiar feeling. Nowhere near as refined, and I personally wouldn’t ever stick it in an enterprise setting… but for a lab/home use, it gets the job done if you’re a geek

By: SanGod

SanGod — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:04:31 +0000

Ok – I think I’m sensing a theme here. Something tells me i might want to look into OpenSolaris.

By: tim

tim — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:58:23 +0000

*cough*opensolaris*cough*

By: SanGod

SanGod — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:48:06 +0000

I’ve seen a number of CX300′s up for $2-3k, one starting as low as $500. FC4700′s/FC5700′s are there as well, but since you can’t get the larger drives for them, they aren’t really worth the operating cost. (I got rid of my FC5300 because to have 30x 18G drives was kind of a waste given the power, rack space, and cooling it required.)

By: Fabio Rapposelli

Fabio Rapposelli — Fri, 30 May 2008 09:16:50 +0000

Oh, and solid LACP support as well.
Feel free to mail me if you need further informations.

bye,
Fabio

By: Fabio Rapposelli

Fabio Rapposelli — Fri, 30 May 2008 09:04:49 +0000

Try OpenSolaris, there’s a FC,iSCSI and now SAS target, native in-kernel NFS and CIFS support (no samba) with wonderful AD support.
Oh, and it’s free

By: storageguy201

storageguy201 — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:39:55 +0000

I’ll give OpenFiler a shot, thanks. So, if one were to look for a paid yet inexpensive FC solution for home, what’s a good deal out there these days? Older FC4700s? CX300? AX-150? HP MSA 1000? Apple X-RAID? OpenE? San Melody? I find most FC connectivity solutions also use FC drives which are $$$ as opposed to say the SATA drives ( performance and error rates aside)

By: SanGod

SanGod — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:59:23 +0000

you might give OpenFiler a try, the only real complaint I had with v2.2.x was that joining it to an AD domain was clunky at best. I’m told it’s better but we’ll just have to see.

I’m really enjoying my playtime with Open-E’s product. I won’t eval it fully beyond a couple of test VM’s unless I get a full version though, too many risks.

iSCSI seems to make more sense from a pure cost standpoint, and yes, i can see the performance on a system that allows real load-balancing and such – but given that VMWare’s support for load-balancing via iSCSI is anemic at best (it will let you zone to multiple targets, but not really using multiple source NIC’s) I think if you want real performance you’re going to have to go FC.

By: storageguy201

storageguy201 — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:51:12 +0000

While I haven’t used the Linux iSCSI implementation which I heard was put together using a packet sniffer to understand the iSCSI protocol using a CISCO iSCI device ?). I have used iSCSI across Celerra and NetApp for backups and they perform equally well (in other words, no complaints from the DBAs) when doing database backup dumps. We have a seperate VLAN for iSCSI though with jumbo frames enabled.

I too have been contempelating FC vs. iSCSI for home lab setup and iSCSI just seems to be winning given it’s availability in various inexpensive forms and the fact that I don’t have to buy or install HBA cards and fibre cables. I think I’m going to go with a 3Ware/Adaptec/PERC RAID card on a Dell 2650 then run FreeNAS or CentOS to serve NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, RSYNCD etc – should be good enough for a home/lab setup.