RE: Are there any coming iSCSI HBAs? Preferably at 100Mb speed?

[Andre Hedrick <andre@linux-ide.org>]

Eddy,

Are you suggesting drives with RJ45 connections as their interface?


On Sat, 12 Apr 2003, Eddy Quicksall wrote:

> How about an iSCSI disk though? Are any of those available or on the drawing
> board?
> 
> Eddy
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Russell Lewis [mailto:russelll@us.ibm.com] 
> Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 5:50 PM
> To: ips@ece.cmu.edu
> Subject: RE: Are there any coming iSCSI HBAs? Preferably at 100Mb speed?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> An HBA of the sort I'm envisioning wouldn't need iSCSI Boot compliance.  I
> was thinking more along the lines of a card where you preconfigure the IP
> address and iSCSI parameters and burn it onto flash memory.
> 
> I know that $50-$100 is the commodity price range...that's exactly what I'm
> looking for.  I know that it's too early to really expect that, but
> somebody like NetGear could make a lot of money...
> 
> I just wonder if somebody could take fairly standard 10/100 Ethernet
> hardware, slap on a little embedded processor, some memory, and some
> EEPROM, and then run an open source initiator.  For development simplicity,
> maybe just run embedded Linux on the little processor.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> |---------+---------------------------->
> |         |           "Steven J.       |
> |         |           Schuchart Jr."   |
> |         |           <sschuchart@nwc.c|
> |         |           om>              |
> |         |           Sent by:         |
> |         |           owner-ips@ece.cmu|
> |         |           .edu             |
> |         |                            |
> |         |                            |
> |         |           04/11/2003 12:30 |
> |         |           PM               |
> |         |                            |
> |---------+---------------------------->
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>   |
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>   |       To:       <ips@ece.cmu.edu>
> |
>   |       cc:
> |
>   |       Subject:  RE: Are there any coming iSCSI HBAs?  Preferably at
> 100Mb speed?                                             |
>   |
> |
>  
> >---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hmmm....I am reviewing iSCSI HBAs that look like SCSI adapters to the
> system
> right now.  They are 10/100/1000, and cost in excess of $500.00.  I
> seriously doubt there will be a card like you describe for economic
> reasons.
> 
> The $50-$100 price range is a commodity price range.  The development costs
> are going to be prohibitive for an iSCSI HBA at that low speed, especially
> when you can simply add a second NIC on a different subnet for iSCSI
> traffic
> for about that price.  That's not even addressing the issue of a 100Mb
> card.
> Most people will not put up with 10MB/sec max disk transfer rates.
> 
> Beyond that, I do not believe that the iSCSI boot specification is
> completed
> as of yet.  As far as I know you cannot boot from an iSCSI device at this
> time.  If that's not right, someone please correct me.
> 
> Honestly, you would be better off using a PXE network boot.
> 
> Steven
> 
> Steven J. Schuchart Jr.
> Associate Technology Editor
> Servers and Storage Technology
> Network Computing Magazine
> Email:  sschuchart@nwc.com
> "Information is the currency of democracy." - Thomas Jefferson
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ips@ece.cmu.edu [mailto:owner-ips@ece.cmu.edu]On Behalf Of
> Russell Lewis
> Sent: Friday, April 11, 2003 11:25 AM
> To: ips@ece.cmu.edu
> Subject: Are there any coming iSCSI HBAs? Preferably at 100Mb speed?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Does anybody know of any current or coming iSCSI HBAs which show up (to the
> BIOS) as ordinary SCSI adapters?  I'd like to drop such an HBA into a
> legacy computer and run a totally diskless workstation at home.
> 
> However, since it will be a home computer, I'm willing to operate at 100Mb
> speed - I'm willing to eat the performance hit.  It seems to me that
> somebody could make an iSCSI HBA with a 100Mb interface and make it
> affordable for the home user (say, $50-$100).  Anybody know of such plans?
> 
> 
> 
> 

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group