Consolidating storage with iscsi

[stormy1]

I am redoing my home network and over the next few months adding a new server or 2(2008 server and maybe Linux) and 3 new workstations(win7-64 pro).
Looking over my current computers they all have 1tb+ drives on them with only maybe 100GB used at most.
I am thinking of not putting drives in the new computers and putting all the storage on the server(s) with iscsi and SMB/CIFS.
The server(s) would be backed up to tape and usb drives nightly.
Has anyone else done this on a small scale? What os did you use to run the target?
Network will be wired GB.

 

[ChrisBenn]

I have my HTPC (Win 7) booting off an iSCSI lun, and my iMac backing up to an iSCSI lun for time machine.

If you want to boot off iSCSI (which sounds like what you want with diskless) you really have two options - PXE with etherboot/gPXE, or a server class nic that supports an iSCSI HBA mode. The former (gPXE) requires specific nic support also - you need to flash a new firmware, and really getting PXE setup is a huge PITA. IMO seriously not worth it.

I picked up a broadcom server NIC off of ebay that acts as an iSCSI HBA (5709) and that's what I am using now. You just go into the NIC bios (like you would a raid card bios @ boot) and setup the iSCSI LUN, etc. information. It's really the way to go if that's what you want to do.

Though honestly the absolute simplest way is to pick up a small 40gig + SSD and boot off of that, and keep everything else online. 40Gig intel would be my choice, and it's not much more expensive than a nic that supports iSCSI HBA mode.

I'm using Solaris Express 11 for the fileserver / iSCSI target, etc. COMSTAR (what comes with solaris/open indiana) is probably one of the more robust iSCSI targets out there. Windows server 2008 has an iSCSI target software built in (I think it's on regular 2008, might be storage server only though).

 

[stormy1]

Thanks Chris, I was thinking of using gPXE booting from a usb thumb drive to boot the computers.
Small ssd is the second option I am considering but I could add another computer for the cost of the ssd drives. (Atom for a kitchen computer)