I am on the scrounge for advice again..

We want to setup 6 workstations that recieve data from wireless EEG equipment with 2 per workstation. However we do not want to store the data that is recieved locally and had planned to setup something like a HP storage array and connect to it using iSCSI. However the iSCSI connection would only be operating over 100mb ethernet and would be shared with all other network traffic (not that there would be much). Does anyone know what kind of performance we would get and would we run into problems with speed?

As i said the data only comes in over wireless so its not streaming in at an alarming rate, but there would be 6 workstation writing to the array at once.

I am on the scrounge for advice again..

We want to setup 6 workstations that recieve data from wireless EEG equipment with 2 per workstation. However we do not want to store the data that is recieved locally and had planned to setup something like a HP storage array and connect to it using iSCSI. However the iSCSI connection would only be operating over 100mb ethernet and would be shared with all other network traffic (not that there would be much). Does anyone know what kind of performance we would get and would we run into problems with speed?

As i said the data only comes in over wireless so its not streaming in at an alarming rate, but there would be 6 workstation writing to the array at once.

Don't bother with iSCSI unless you have a 1Gbit or better link plus a hardware accelerator or a lot of spare CPU cycles.

Assuming the building is wired cat5 then I'd got for a 1Gbit switch and some faster NICs to allow you to run at 1Gbit.

Edited 17 June, 201016 yr by cheezemonkhai

Is there an alternative to iSCSI we could look at? Whats the main issues with iSCSI then?

The building is CAT5, but the university is going through a £2.3m network upgrade at the moment to 1Gbit and the building this is located in is last on the list :p

Is there an alternative to iSCSI we could look at? Whats the main issues with iSCSI then?

The building is CAT5, but the university is going through a £2.3m network upgrade at the moment to 1Gbit and the building this is located in is last on the list :p

Problem with iSCSI is really going to be all the work your target and initiators are going to be doing to package up the data. Over a 100Mbit link it's obviously going to be an issue.

I'd probably just stick with something like NFS for the short term, until you have a faster network.

Also remember that iSCSI is a way of encapsulating scsi commands over a network connection.... so it doesn't provide a multi-user type environment like nfs or cifs. It's designed as a cheap alternative to SANs, as you present a LUN to a machine as you would a disk to an OS. So if all 6 machines can't access the same storage unless you give them a unique LUN each.

Also remember that iSCSI is a way of encapsulating scsi commands over a network connection.... so it doesn't provide a multi-user type environment like nfs or cifs. It's designed as a cheap alternative to SANs, as you present a LUN to a machine as you would a disk to an OS. So if all 6 machines can't access the same storage unless you give them a unique LUN each.

Indeed, it's presents block devices rather than higher level interfaces.