[geeks] FibreChannel or FDDI

[Cory Smelosky]

--
Cory Smelosky
Sent from a mobile device

On 14 Feb 2013, at 11:43, Dan Sikorski <me at dansikorski.com> wrote:

> On 02/14/2013 09:08 AM, b4 at gewt.net wrote:
>> Hello!
>>
>> At home, i'm currently running VMWare, and i'm using shared disks on a
NAS4FREE box via iSCSI over gigE shared with the VMs.
>>
>> I was wondering what would be faster performance-wise or if I could
configure things this way.
>>
>> I can get some FDDI cards + necessary hardware (PCI) for the two, and I was
wondering if that would be slower than iSCSI over gigE or if it'd be
equal/faster...I'm leaning towards equal due to less overhead and it being a
dedicated network for it.
>>
>> I also have a couple FibreChannel cards (64-bit/66MHz I think...other
systems don't have the full length slots so I know i'd be limited speed-wise
there).  Despite the speed decrease due to backwards-compat...would it be
equal, faster, or slower than my current setup? If yes, would it be possible
to do point-to-point between the two systems and have System2 access disks on
System1?
>>
>> (in actuality, performance isn't too big of a deal, I can handle a
performance hit for the types of VMs i'm eunning)
>
> Well,
> gigE - 1gbit
> FC - 1/2/4/8gbit
> FDDI - 100mbit
>
> I'd go ahead and rule out FDDI right there based on speed.  It's cool to
play with, so if that's all your after, go for it, but iSCSI over FDDI AFAIK
would be at best extremely rare.

Not surprised it's rare. ;)

>
> Is there a reason you didn't outline the option of adding some gigE
interfaces?  That would certainly be the easiest option for you and eliminate
the contention with having iSCSI and guest VM traffic share the interface.

Speed isn't a necessity, having something to play with is. ;)

Adding a second NIC isn't as fun. ;)

>
> Of course, this is the geeks list.  Who cares about bus speed, we want to
play with the fun stuff!  Go with FC on the storage end. :)  That said,
looking at NAS4FREE's website (i've never used it myself) i don't see FC
listed as being supported, and it's an entirely different animal than iSCSI
over Ethernet.

Nas4Free is FreeBSD under the hood, I think the hard part would be getting
VMWare to like it. ;)

>
>    -Dan Sikorski
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