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iSCSI HBAs

R

Red Squirrel

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Nov 29, 2009
Messages
9,217
Have these come down in price, or am I missing something? Just did a quick google search on ebay out of curiosity and found them for super cheap:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/?_nkw...udhi=&_sop=12&_fpos=&_fspt=1&_sadis=&LH_CAds=

Are these actual HBAs or is there something I'm missing? Last I checked, iSCSI HBAs were several thousand dollars. Now some are selling for under 100!

It would be cool to use iSCSI but have it show up as if it was a hardware drive to the computer. Heck, could even boot an OS off it! This is what these do right? You configure the iSCSI at the bios level instead of the OS? Of course these are just single port but even the dual port ones arn't that pricy.
 
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Yes that is what they do.

Personally I don't use one, but just pxe boot, ipxe, let it iscsi boot, and then windows 7, linux, will pickup from there and continue booting and using iscsi.
 
Hmm ipxe sounds very interesting too. I'll have to look at that.

Glad to know these cards came way down in price though. Something to consider when I build my new VM server. Even tempting for my workstation, though I guess I should keep that independent, if my SAN goes down I need a machine that works. :p
 
pxe is boot from network card, using dhcp/tftp

iscsi is boot from iscsi lun

ipxe is just software.
 
iscsi allows you to omit the the disk in the pc, so the disk is in a SAN.

pxe allows you too boot from NIC? Where is the disk? On a SAN or NAS?
 
AFAIK, with ipxe the disk can still be on the SAN, it is just how you get booted from it that is different.
 
pxe doesn't support disks, it supports tftp ONLY.

ipxe supports all kinds of things, so you use pxe to load ipxe, to load iscsi, poormans iscsi boot.

Or by an iscsi nic, and do it all in one step.
 
I never could boot via iSCSI reliably using those software loaders.

Buy an 82574L Intel NIC and flash it with an official iSCSI firmware. That's a foolproof way to get reliable iSCSI boot. It hooks its virtual drive before the BIOS is done enumerating all drives, so the iSCSI drive appears as a normal disk in the boot priority screen.

That's the one I'm talking about: http://skinflint.co.uk/intel-gigabit-ct-desktop-adapter-expi9301ct-a351749.html

Get firmware here: http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/highlights/network/iscsi?wapkw=iscsi
 
Those intels are not iscsi hba compatable. They will not make the iscsi lun appear as a harddrive.

If the os you use has iscsi boot ability (windows 7 ultimate, linux, ...), it will work fine, as it works the same way ipxe does. Once the os boots, ipxe and that intel firmware will go away.

If you get a real iscsi hba, like the qlogic, it appears as a real local disk, and no os support is required. Meaning you can run dos, windows xp, or anything else youwant on it, and it doesn't need any iscsi modifications.
 
That's good to know. The Intel route is probably the best bet then. Does flashing it still allow it to be used as a regular nic, or is it one or the other? Like if I ever decide to re purpose it or what not, can I change a setting in the boot menu so it just acts as a normal card?

Also what's the difference between these cheap cards I'm finding on ebay, or buying an Intel card and flashing it, and these ridiculously expensive cards here:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/search.asp?keywords=iscsi+hba

In case that link does not work, here's a direct link to one:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5395584&CatId=200

The fact that these iSCSI nics seem to be available at affordable prices is a game changer for me. I might redo my whole setup to be iSCSI. I know you can use software for iSCSI but I figured it kinda defeated the purpose.

Though, is there any benefit to iSCSI if I'm just sharing out the files through NFS/samba anyway? Ex: SAN does iSCSI to host, then host shares files to various machines. Wonder if that will increase latency.
 
The firmware only switches the BIOS hooks from PXE to iSCSI. In either case, it's still a normal NIC. You can flash it back and forth as you need.
 
patrickdk said:
Those intels are not iscsi hba compatable. They will not make the iscsi lun appear as a harddrive.

If the os you use has iscsi boot ability (windows 7 ultimate, linux, ...), it will work fine, as it works the same way ipxe does. Once the os boots, ipxe and that intel firmware will go away.

If you get a real iscsi hba, like the qlogic, it appears as a real local disk, and no os support is required. Meaning you can run dos, windows xp, or anything else youwant on it, and it doesn't need any iscsi modifications.
Click to expand...
I would like to read more on this. Can you recommend a good starting web site on this?
 
Oh I missed that part about the intels. I'm guessing that probably goes for the cheap ones I found on ebay too then?
 
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