Fiber without a Switch?

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sapper6fd

Member
May 21, 2013
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I was able to get two QLogic 2462, Dual Port 4Gb Fibre Channel HBA's for free and would like to connect them between two systems, but don't have a switch for them.

I'd like to put one in my R710 running Server 2012 (on ESXI) and the other in an R510 running FreeNAS. Is it possible to direct connect them between the two systems and use them to transfer data or am I dead in the water without a switch?

If this is possible, is there a way to use Link Aggregation between both ports in order to increase their transfer speed?
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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Target/initator for fiber channel works without a switch fine assuming your software supports.

Does FreeNAS support MPIO ? If so then ESX supports some basic load balancing of FC connections.

Sorry I don't know freenas well so not really sure what it offers but I am sure others will chime in with a more detailed answer.

Having said this don't get too hung up on load balancing since actually 4G FC is pretty fast for a single system.
 
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bds1904

Active Member
Aug 30, 2013
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If possible run ESXi on both servers and Use the pre built napp-it VM and ComStar to set up The driver in target mode. You'll have to pass thru the FC Adapter And the HBA to the VM. If the storage server does not support pass thru then run a suggested Solaris based is and install napp-it.

Configuring Fibre Channel Devices With COMSTAR - Oracle Solaris Administration: Devices and File Systems

From there set up ESXi with one connection to the storage server, verify its working then set up the second one round-robin.
 

sapper6fd

Member
May 21, 2013
48
1
8
Perfect. Thnaks for the replies. I'll have to do a bit more research on setting this up. I haven't really played around at all with Fiber before so this will be a learning experience.