[SLL] Rant: ATA-over-Ethernet 0x88a2

[Andrew Sweger]

On Thu, 5 May 2005, Jesse Keating wrote:

> It would have to be commodity priced.  This isn't something enterprise
> quality nor should it be relied upon as such.  There are some companies
> that are selling a network drive appliance.  Just a box around a
> harddrive that runs an embedded OS to setup a FTP/SMB server to access
> the drive.  Also can access through firewire.  I'm sure you could just
> add a larger drive to the enclosure.  Just got to convince these people
> to sell the enclosure w/out the drive already in it.

But keep in mind this is going in another direction (from where I'm
looking at the problem). I don't want a device that requires configuration
through an embedded OS web interface (or whatever). Not to mention the
lack of filesystem abstractions across discrete storage units (e.g., md,
lvm, etc.). As soon as it has power and gets a link from the switch, it's
live. There's no TCP or IP stack involved. No applications. Just devices
and ATA "packets". I've already got computers and they're loaded with
applications for talking to data. I can't shoehorn any more drives into
the chassis and I can't afford to keep replacing the disks with bigger
ones every year or two (and throwing out the old drives just because
they're half as big as the ones I'm using now). My plan is to have at
least 3TB of storage on-line at home in the next year and have it as
cheaply as possible (including not buying new hard drives). Why is another
story altogether (I don't have to insert music CDs anymore and I'm about
to do the same to DVDs). In two years, I want to be pushing 8TB. Three
years: 40TB.

To those that think this is an insane amount of storage, just remember
that time and space are not mutually exclusive domains. I agree that there
is a rapidly diminishing margin of return as one accumulates old 40GB hard
drives, but there's no reason to toss them out yet.

-- 
Andrew B. Sweger -- The great thing about multitasking is that several
                                things can go wrong at once.