StarWind Software

Hi,

maybe it's a silly question, but:

is it possible to cross-connect Starwind iSCSI offered drives under W2K3 through different servers?

Example:

- SRV1 offers DRV1
- SRV2 offers DRV2
- SRV3 offers DRV3

- SRV1 mounts DRV1 (himself) & DRV2 & DRV3 as RAID 5 partition
- SRV2 mounts DRV1 & DRV2 (himself) & DRV3 as RAID 5 partition
- SRV3 mounts DRV1 & DRV2 & DRV3 (himself) as RAID 5 partition

So if RAID 5 replication can work through iSCSI this way, it would be a good start for a server-based RAID 5.


Let's call it i-SAN...


regards,

G¡sta

Hi,

it's not a silly question and such a configuration would work fine. The only problem is -- under Windows 2000 and up you'll have all of the RAID volumes managed by LDM and partitioned as dynamic disks. And you'll have extremely hard times bringing them (volumes) up. Just b/s LDM service starts BEFORE iSCSI initiator would brings the volumes. For now StarPort (our initiator) does not have very good support for dynamic disks. We've did dynamic disks reactivation but did not publish it b/s we have enough of problems with MS already b/s of our iSCSI initiator. So it's recommended for such a congiguration to use MS iSCSI initiator (of course you'll be punished on performance in such a case). Please read a section about dynamic disk reactivation in MS iSCSI documentation and go on using StarWind for networked RAIDs

i-SAN? wrote:Hi,

maybe it's a silly question, but:

is it possible to cross-connect Starwind iSCSI offered drives under W2K3 through different servers?

Example:

- SRV1 offers DRV1
- SRV2 offers DRV2
- SRV3 offers DRV3

- SRV1 mounts DRV1 (himself) & DRV2 & DRV3 as RAID 5 partition
- SRV2 mounts DRV1 & DRV2 (himself) & DRV3 as RAID 5 partition
- SRV3 mounts DRV1 & DRV2 & DRV3 (himself) as RAID 5 partition

So if RAID 5 replication can work through iSCSI this way, it would be a good start for a server-based RAID 5.


Let's call it i-SAN...


regards,

G¡sta

Hi, I just read your bit about raid. What if I have a hardware raid controller and am using basic disks? I want to mirror my server drives remotley for disaster recovery purposes.

It does not matter what physical attachment you use - Windows software RAID over iSCSI volumes is supported in the latest (not yet released) StarPort. Also next (not yet released) StarWind has own software RAID implementation. Drop a message to info@rocketdivision.com to get preview versions (release candidates).

stewconsult wrote:Hi, I just read your bit about raid. What if I have a hardware raid controller and am using basic disks? I want to mirror my server drives remotley for disaster recovery purposes.