[clue-tech] external hard drive caddies with ethernet not SATA interconnect?

[Jim Ockers]

Hi CLUEbies,

I am working on a project which requires modular storage in an 
industrial environment.  I am thinking about trying to use "external" 
hard drives for the data storage.  That is, the hard drives will be 
separate modules.  I'd like to use ethernet with iSCSI as the 
interconnect, so I can have many:many disk/server relationships, and 
also do software RAID over the targets.

I've used the Linux iSCSI enterprise target (iet) software and it's 
great.  I'm thinking that a disk with a little single board computer or 
other microcontroller, with ethernet and SATA interfaces, could run the 
iSCSI enterprise target and export the disk as a network block device on 
the ethernet.  Ethernet gets us a bunch of other spiffy advantages that 
we couldn't do with eSATA, firewire, USB, etc.

*Do any of you know if anyone is making such a thing?*  It doesn't have 
to be in an industrial enclosure, we can make that (it would just have 
power and ethernet connectors on the outside of the enclosure).  Inside 
the enclosure would be the disk and the little computer, connected to 
each other via SATA.

We can make the system software for the little computer, including the 
web cgi etc. for management and SMART, I just need somewhere from which 
to source the hardware.  I looked around a bit and the only external 
drive enclosures I see are eSATA and the like.

Thanks,
Jim

-- 
Jim Ockers, P.Eng. (ockers at ockers.net)
Contact info: http://www.ockers.ca/pason.html


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