5 Nov
2010
5 Nov
'10
10:59 a.m.
On 11/5/10 1:51 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:
From what I remember, the protocol allows it - and I seem to recall
using some SGI systems that did this. Whether any modern commodity OS
supports it though, I don't know - e.g. I think as recent as three years
ago, Linux would barf if you tried to do it; the kernel code[1] just
wasn't designed with the possibility in mind. Perhaps that's "fixed"
now.
[1] I think it may have been a driver issue rather than a fundamental
problem with the core SCSI code, though - nobody coded the drivers to
expect it, because nobody out there was crazy enough to be doing it :-)
That'd be a high-level driver limitation.
There was a project a long time ago in which the onboard SCSI
interfaces of a group of SPARCstations was used as a cluster
interconnect. It used an IP-over-SCSI driver that made things easy to
configure.
It's part of the spec. The interfaces will negotiate the best speed
and width that both endpoints can support. It's all extremely clean and
scalable. (which is why it's still around)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
I do. :) I don't much relish the idea of
connecting a big thick SCSI
cable between two computers when the connection is going to end up
being temporary. It just sounds like a pain.
BTW, may I ask some stupid questions about SCSI here?
- Can I connect one computer to another thru SCSI? - Can I
connect a 80-pin device to a 50-pin controller?
I've done it, but I'm not sure if it's part of the spec and therefore
that you can expect it to work with whatever devices you throw at it.