Fiber Channel vs. iSCSI 1

[jpp]

Hi.

Any one have opinions/experiences they can share with me re: which SAN solution to go with ?
I am tempted by iscsi because it would mean less up front investment since we already have gig switches and nics in place that we used to set up a dedicated LAN for arcserve backups.
It also would probably mean less of a learning curve for me and my staff.
and Microsoft seems gung ho about iscsi, given the free iscsi initiator software.
But on the otherhand, I am concerned that iscsi is fairly new, and also whether performance will be an issue.

thanks

 

[culainn]

Hi,
I think the view is that iSCSI is still a bit new. Check out some of the storage websites

http://storagemagazine.techtarget.com/strgTrend/1,291266,sid35_gci963759,00.html

http://www.byteandswitch.com

colin.

 

[davidmichel]

The goal should be considered. If you are looking for plain old storage for files iSCSI would be a great choice. If you are looking to support video streaming or a high transaction database Fibre Channel is the way to go. iSCSI can still be used but forget about using Microsoft drivers and even those 1gb NICs may not be enough. To support those types of applications an iSCSI HBA with an TCP offload engine should be used and if this network is in anyways open an encription chip also. Security is a bigger concern with iSCSI.

As for ARCserve it works fine with both, but check the certified device list to make sure there will not be problems there also.