11 May
2007
11 May
'07
10:54 a.m.
On 5/11/07, Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> wrote:
On Friday 11 May 2007 11:37, Ethan Dicks wrote:
I figured it was a standard, but I had a memory that the early 9GB FC
drives I played with at Lucent had either some form of edge connector
or something not centered along the axis of the drive - i.e. -
non-standard or obsolete standard.
I was staring at a Seagate "fiber
channel" drive today and trying to
figure out what the most economical method of attaching a few to a
box would be...
The connector is a standard 40-pin FCAL SCA connector, and is used by
basically every available FC drive. There are some things you can get called "T"
adapters to hook up
individual drives, or you can get a multi-drive enclosure to hook up
multiple drives. The enclosures generally come in two different
forms - one with integrated raid controllers, and straight FC-AL drive
enclosures.
Hmm... I think "T adapter" was the phrase I was hunting for. Also, I
would expect that an integrated RAID controller would require some
sort of host-based configuration software?
With the HBAs, you can go either copper of fiber
(whichever matches your
drive enclosures). I've had really good luck with Qlogic's QLA2200 and
QLA2100 cards, which are also pretty cheaply available on ebay (<$20
ea).
I've seen a couple of cards floating around that appear to be a Qlogic
2210, based on stickers on the cards. Perhaps they are just QLA2200s.
Ethan, if you're gonna be going to Dayton this
year, I can haul some FC
gear with me, if you want some enclosures, cables, PCI HBAs, etc. I've
got plenty of extra gear right now, which I could stand to divest
myself of some of. :) If you're interested, catch me off-list.
Hmm... I would _like_ to be at Dayton, but I'm trying to arrange how
to still be permitted to put in 40 hours for the week (hourly
contracting and all of that). A day off without pay is rather
expensive.
-ethan