OmniOS + napp-it?

[smccloud]

I'm planning my home network upgrade for when my wife and I finally buy a house. Just because I can, I world like to use Fiber Channel between one or more storage servers and one or more ESXi hosts. Is it possible to have an OmniOS + napp-it box be a Fiber Channel target? And since I don't have much experience with FC, can a single ZFS pool be accessed by multiple ESXi hosts at once?

 

[bds1904]

OmniOS + Nappt-It can serve FC targets with no issues.

You will want to use the QLE-246x series adapters for both ESXi and OmniOS, it is easily put in target mode in OmniOS and has native ESXi support.

From there you will either be doing point-to-point FC, or you will need a FC switch. For home use a Brocade 200e is a good choice. Try to find one that is fully licensed and comes with some SFP's.

Configuration is pretty simple once OmniOS + NappIt is installed, the adapter is put in target mode and you have a pool configured. You just create one FC Target and share it to the rest of the WWN's. Format it on 1 ESXi box then refresh the targets on the others.

All that being said:
1. Do you really NEED more that 1Gb thruput on your storage?
2. Are you going to have more than 2 hosts? If not, point-to-point 10Gb will be cheaper and faster.
3. Do you really need more than 1 ESXi host? AIO is a little bit more expensive up front, but lower power usage in the end.

 

[smccloud]

I use my home network to learn stuff for work. I would like to learn ESXi clustering so I might end up with more than one host. I world probably start worth point to point abs add a FC switch down the road.