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Fibre Channel is just a network, from what I understand (I also have no experience with it, but I've done a bit of research on it in the past), and all sorts of protocols can run over it, just like ethernet. So, you could use IP over FC, or whatever... But SCSI is the protocol of choice for storage, so it should be pretty familair in that regard. The FC controllers should allow booting from the array, and a simple software RAID setup should be all it takes to make it work on the computer side. So, that's easy enough. Not all that much different from SCSI/IDE RAID. Made a mistake, though. FC is 1 gigabit, not 400 megabit as I indicated in my last post. Bonus.

There is a DIY way to go about Fibre Channel, but unfortunately, I can't find the excelent bookmarks that I had which described it all... Including the setup on Linux/Windows, but it seemed pretty easy once you've got all the hardware in order.

Basically, you need a thing called a "T-Card" for each drive. Normally, these are built into the backplane on the FC enclosure, and supply data and power. The T-Card adapter is basically the same thing, except you provide the interconnets in the form of cable and power input. There are 3 interconnect options, DB-9, some high speed serial connector, and optical. I also thought there was an RJ-45 method, but I can't find it.

OKAY... After much googling, I've found the adapter card that can be used with single disks: Cinonic systems made this up. I'm pretty sure that this is what I happened upon before. All you need is one of these for each disk, and a bunch of shielded Cat-5 for hooking 'em up. They're expensive, but hey, you gotta pay if you wanna play, right? :D

It seems that the prices for FC stuff has come down quite a bit, here's an auction similar to the one I mentioned earler, probably by the same vendor. 8 of the back-plane adapters would come up to $480 (60$ each), plus the drives, cabling and whatnot would make such an offer pretty attractive. If you want higher capacity, just get some newer drives and put these on the shelf--it's still a damn good deal. All you would need at that point is a length of DB-9 terminated cable, and some place to put the enclosure. If I had the money, I'd be bidding (but I wouldn't have told you! :P).

If you want to go the more commercial route, Apple has some very competitve options that should work equally well on a PC or Linux/BSD system--those are quite drewl worthy, IMHO. But these are enterprise type systems, so the price is pretty shocking (to someone of my current monetary level anyway).

It would be just as well to go IDE RAID (much much cheaper), except I'd also like to move those noisy drives out of my working environment--which either means FC, or building some sort of sound proof chamber to keep my computers in. Hrm.

Having built my own fiber channel backplanes based of a previously slashdot mentioned cinonic backplane, I agree, there are difficulties in setting up a fibre channel array.

I got a db9-db9 cable and a hssdc-hssdc cable orgiinally, and ended up trying to solder them together. I'd never tried soldering shields together, and presumed it would take a while, but I kinda found out its pretty much impossible. So I just pulled on over the other and wire wrapped the hell out of it.

I suspect its because of the cabling, but my fibre setup is fairly intollerant to electrical fields. I have to place the drives and cabling as far away from everything; cat 5, computer systems, et al. Kinda not pretty.

Before proper positioning, you'd get occasional sometimes fatal SCSI errors. Kernel panics were driving me nuts. I realized the drive was between a switch and a computer, so I spent a while and figured out the path of least interference. Now I can run bonnie++ on my 5 disc soft-raid 5 JBOD for a week straight. And fry eggs as the same time! And no more kernel panics. Thats always a plus.

Its a pain, but in the proper linux motto, once you can get it running, you can bet its not gonna stop.

[properly formatted repost from a moron. sorry]

Having built my own fiber channel backplanes based of a previously slashdot mentioned cinonic backplane, I agree, there are difficulties in setting up a fibre channel array. I got a db9-db9 cable and a hssdc-hssdc cable orgiinally, and ended up trying to solder them together. I'd never tried soldering shields together, and presumed it would take a while, but I kinda found out its pretty much impossible. So I just pulled on over the other and wire wrapped the hell out of it. I suspect its because of the cabling, but my fibre setup is fairly intollerant to electrical fields. I have to place the drives and cabling as far away from everything; cat 5, computer systems, et al. Kinda not pretty. Before proper positioning, you'd get occasional sometimes fatal SCSI errors. Kernel panics were driving me nuts. I realized the drive was between a switch and a computer, so I spent a while and figured out the path of least interference. Now I can run bonnie++ on my 5 disc soft-raid 5 JBOD for a week straight. And fry eggs as the same time! And no more kernel panics. Thats always a plus. Its a pain, but in the proper linux motto, once you can get it running, you can bet its not gonna stop.

Aside from being a whiny prick that tried to cause trouble for competing fibre channel product vendors on Ebay, Sanden Fuess's products are designed so far out of spec it's sad. They may be cute as a hand assembled hacker novelty, but I'd never put them into any type of production environment.

General rule: If it doesn't AC decouple and doesn't actively terminate, or it does not use 0603 or *smaller* surface mount components, don't buy it. And, if it doesn't use shielded cables, laugh at the vendor! If any of the above are missing you will have retiming issues causing intermittent failures.

I designed the Cinonic FC2's. Alass the market for 'mid-range' FC has all but died, so we never re-uped our stock when we ran low a few months ago. : (

Just when you thought IDE would finaly have a stake driven through it's heart, now we have the bastard-serial-son of IDE.

More devices? What's the friggin point if you care an ounce about performance?

I'd like to actually see 150MB/s move across that bus with anything other then a loop back plug! (Ignore this if you're one of idiots out there that believes the Windows benchmarks that say you're doing 50MB/s on your single drive...you're beyond saving.)

Let the flames commence...as I sit back and blissfully watch 90MB/s Bonnie's from my Fibre Channel RAID.

it's called Fibre Channel. 'SAS' digresses. SCSI should rightfully die as a transport. Fibre channel already transports SCSI-3, TCP/IP, and others over a single pair loop configuration similar to ethernet. 'Infiniband' will be the forth coming 10GB general replacement for Fibre Channel...

Serial ATA is of course a joke. What should be done is to standardize a basic non-SCA cabling scheme and spec for 'consumer' rated Fibre Channel, instead of going on with this ridiculous ATA bullshit. (Like SCSI should have been standardized on years ago.)

Heh, actually a company called Cinonic Systems sells Fibre Channel Tester Cards (which can be chained and made into a loose array) that use STP Cat-5 as their transmission medium. It looks pretty cool, though I still consider it a tad ballsy to network your harddrives... *thinks to himself*

eagle:~$ ping /dev/da0
PING /dev/da0 (192.168.3.4) from 127.0.0.1 : 56(84) bytes of data.

...

--- /dev/da0 ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

*shiver*
I sincerely recommend this product and/or service...

http://www.cinonic.com/

Yes a shameless plug...

Here is a search for fibre channel at ebay

I cannot find this "dump of 'ew 18GB Barracuda drives for $70 each'" $30 for the FC2-2DB9 and I might consider it... but right now these 'dumped drives' seem a little vapourous - could our /. editors not be maintaining their usually high level of integrity and *confirming* their stories...

All I could find even close to what's described above was:
36 GB IBM FCHDD
9 GB Seagate FCHDD