[CentOS] how do export a block device via eSATA?

[Rudi Ahlers]

On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 11:10 PM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/13/11 1:58 PM, Rudi Ahlers wrote:
>>
>> Sure, I understand what you're saying, but the question is: If they
>> can do it with a cheap device like this, then surely one should be
>> able todo it with a normal / server motherboard? Obviously they won't
>> tell us their secrets, so I need to dig around to see how todo it
>> myself. This particular device has a eSATA slave + eSATA Master mode.
>> i.e. I can connect another device to this one and they both work
>> together, and then when I connect the first one to my PC, I have 2
>> HDD's - i.e. a cheap JBOD implementation.
>
> If you are going to pass eSATA straight through, why would you want the other
> motherboard involved at all instead of just using an external eSata enclosure?

I'm trying to build a dense eSATA enclosure with say 16 or 24 drives :)


>
>> I'm trying to see if I can setup  a Linux JBOD on a server chassis
>> with say 16 HDD's or something, and then connect it to another server
>> via eSATA - i.e. building a cheap scalable SAN.
>
> It might make sense to RAID a bunch of disks locally, and export the combined
> device as iscsi.

The 1GBE LAN is a bit slow. SATA can push 6GBe, which is 6 times
faster than 1GBe. And, 6 ports on a LAN switch is a waste. Our 10GBe
switches are saturated (all ports filled) and very expensive.
So I'm looking at cheaper options, and thought eSATA could do the
trick quite well.

>
>> P.S. You actually do get USB cross-over cables:
>> http://en.kioskea.net/faq/342-connecting-two-computers-with-a-usb-cable
>> - they work quite well. They're not as fast a gigabit but works very
>> well for older PC's without LAN.
>
> I thought those were really implemented as back-to-back ethernet converters.

Yes, probably. But they work over USB so it's very handy.

>
> --
>    Les Mikesell
>     lesmikesell at gmail.com
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-- 
Kind Regards
Rudi Ahlers
SoftDux

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