[CentOS] ATA-over-Ethernet v's iSCSI

Mon Nov 7 03:48:19 UTC 2005
Nick Bryant <list at everywhereinternet.com>

Just wondering if anyone out there has any opinions or better still
experience with Coraid's AoE products in a centos environment?

We're looking at developing a very basic active/standby 2 node cluster which
will need a shared storage component. It would be a huge bonus if other
servers could also use the storage device. Originally I was looking at the
Dell/EMC iSCSI solution as it's a cheaper solution than fibre channel.
However, the performance issues without using a TCP offload HBA are a bit of
a concern. 

Then I found the Coraid (www.coraid.com) products based on the open standard
AoE protocol. It's got a number of benefits including: price, less protocol
overhead for the server and the ability to use any disks where as
"enterprise" approved products form the likes of Dell/Sun etc only support
250gb sata disks at the moment.

I guess my concern is that it's a new technology that's not been widely
adopted so far and all the issues that go along with that. 

Any options or feedback would be really helpful.

Cheers,

Nick