Simon, Since you propose to connect one DAS server to one editing station, you can connect back-to-back without a switch. The switches are the most expensive 10 GbE components. While I am a long-time IB enthusiast, I think you will find 10 GbE the easiest way to get an order of magnitude BW improvement with standard networking interfaces. Somebody can tell you which 10 GbE NICs are supported on Solaris and then you can shop for price.
Carl -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [networking-discuss] Infiniband DAS: Solaris/ZFS over Infiniband Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:56:33 -0800 (PST) From: Simon Breden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Don't know if this is the right place for this question, but here goes. If not right place, where should I post it instead? I was wondering about the practicalities of building a DAS box running Solaris with ZFS, attached to a video editing workstation (Mac Pro) via an Infiniband adapter, as these seem about the fastest forms of connection available (certainly a lot faster than gigabit ethernet). I know 10GbE is around but I think it's not quite here for the masses yet (perhaps I'm mistaken, but it's my impression). I was thinking of building my own Solaris box, chucking in something like 8 x 1TB drives in a RAID-Z1 formation, and I was thinking that with the Infiniband connection I should be able to get fast transfer speeds between the boxes, so assuming ZFS was fast enough, this should give a speedy video editing storage server setup (something like this, but with ZFS: http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/enhance/e8/) So my question really is does Infiniband work well on Solaris, and if so, which is the preferred HBA to use? (most solid/well-supported driver, I suppose) Does anyone see any show-stoppers preventing something like this working or does it look doable? In fact are there any people who've built a working setup like this that they have documented? I was thinking of something like the HighPoint RocketRaid 2322 HBA (http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA/rr2322.htm) running in JBOD mode to keep ZFS happy. Oh dear, seems like it supports Mac OS X but not Solaris :( Thanks, Simon -- This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ networking-discuss mailing list [email protected] _______________________________________________ networking-discuss mailing list [email protected]
