On Dec 17, 2007, at 10:32 AM, Michael O'Keefe wrote:

I don't know if there's a "standard" for RAID communications.
It would be nice if the RAID cards spoke IDE/SCSI/SATA so they actually did look like disk block devices and didn't need any specific kernel driver. I'm sure there are reasons why this doesn't happen, I don't know what they are though.


I would hazard that it's mainly a cost issue. it's obviously possible, because the external self-managed RAID cabinets do exactly that: look like a SCSI, SATA or whatever device, and work just like a Big Hard Disk.

In fact, I think I recall seeing a module that would fit in a 5.25" drive bay and do exactly that, but it's been a few years since I've seen it.

If you wanted extra credit, you'd provide an application that opened a control interface as a SCSI generic device to the control module (would would itself appear as another SCSI target separate from the storage). It's perfectly doable.

But it's not dirt-cheap.

Remember, the Cheap Bastards drive everything. Why do it in expensive hardware, if you can just do it in cheaper hardware, or software?

Gregory

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Gregory K. Ruiz-Ade <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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