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#1
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FibreChannel & SCSI simultaneously
Anyone used the Rorke Galaxy-5 RAID controller? It has 4 x FibreChannel ports, and 16 x UltraWide SCSI Ports. I am told that this box allows the use of SCSI drives on the FibreChannel loop - great if you already have SCSI drives and want to go FibreChannel...?
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#2
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Re: FibreChannel & SCSI simultaneously
Matt,
There are a number of RAID controllers now reaching the marketplace that function as fibre to SCSI bridges as well - the Rorke product being one of the better ones. But it is expensive, around $10000. Chaparrel has a fibre to LVD controller that is around $3000 but with fewer channels and less features, but still pretty good performance. However, to go with a fibre network to your workstations, you really need a fabric switch which is around $10000 and drive management software. Basically, the cost is getting into fibre is significant enough (>$25,000) that it will outweigh any consideration that you may have for maintaining your current SCSI investment. |
#3
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Re: FibreChannel & SCSI simultaneously
Surely, you would only need a fabric switch in a larger network where your central storage can be broken into segments that can simultaneously deliver data to different parts of the network that would otherwise exceed 1Gb/s?? (eg: 1 x 100GB array feeding five workstations at 20MB/s each all by two, but still needing to be duplicated...)
Wouldn't one of these also be good for getting into fibrechannel gradually?? |
#4
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Re: FibreChannel & SCSI simultaneously
There are more overriding concerns beyond bandwidth for utilizing a switched network over an arbitrated loop. Network integrity and quality of service are real issues for even small networks with only 3 seats dealing with streaming data. There is plenty of bandwidth for multitrack audio on an arbitrated loop fibre network, but if one node hiccups, all the other seats can also crash. I guess you can say that I have had frustrating experiences with arbitrated loops even on fibre hubs, in both their reliability and performance. If your goal is to share data among several workstations, you want a network that is bulletproof, and seemless like direct connect storage. Again, you have to consider that even at it simplest, fibre channel will still have a high price of entry. And thus, in my opinion, it isn't worth cutting corners on the physical network.
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