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

Sun Feb 13 21:10:47 UTC 2011
Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com>

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 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.

> 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.

-- 
    Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com