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open source SAN storage
An Open Source / Standards based SAN (Storage Area Network) is within reach. With a free / open source standard for AoE (Ata over Ethernet) by Cordaid, a recent Linux distribution, a standard ethernet card and switch now you can build your own SAN.
But they also like flexibility .....
Every layer of flexibility, removes some simplicity. But AoE uses two well known standards (ATA and Ethernet) so the specification document only counts 12 pages. Many high density disks talk (S)ATA and every network connected computer knows Ethernet so why add more complexity with protocols like iSCSI if you want to connect to a remote SATA disk? Setting up your first AoE storage from a recent Linux distribution costs you less than 12 minutes. Changing a physical hard drive takes longer. Lets get our export our first SAN raw disk that we can format and mount on another system.
On the storage server side
Install vbladed or vblade-persist. After that you can choose an empty! partition, logical volume or disk image to export over ethernet. Export this with the vblade daemon. Make sure export to the intended storage clients MAC address with MAC filtering.
On the client side
Install aoe-tools and insert the kernel module aoe. After that you can run aoe-discover (from within the same subnet as the exporting storage server) and you will see a new device in /dev/etherd/e.X.Y.
You can use this device as any regular block device or disk. So the first thing you probably would like to do is create a filesystem on it and mount it.
So why do you want this AoE? If you want to centralize your storage in one machine (behind a lock), or you want to build a quiet system without own internal disks. Or ... well there are many reasons ... Why would you want to have a disk in every device? Keep your disk storage central, keep your energy usage low. Manage your data from a central point.
It is quite easy to build a diskless machine that boots from an AoE disk. Your client machine needs to be capable to boot with PXE. For the server side I would suggest using dnsmasq for tftp and and dhcp. You just need to make a slightly altered initrd with AoE included to boot from the network. Then you would have a quiet system that is easy replacable. If it dies, just replace the hardware, change some settings on your boot and storage server and start the new hardware to boot with the same storage. No need to reinstall your OS. Within minutes your new system is up and running again. If your storage server holds important data, think about a backup strategy to protect against human or technical failure.
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