Volume Number: 26
Issue Number: 03
Column Tag: Kool Tools

Kool Tools-Macsimum Migration Kit: Fibre Channel Connectivity Products for Mac OS X

by Dennis Sellers

For those just joining us, Macsimum Migration is our term for companies moving from Wintel machines to Macs -- or at least adding or increasing the number of Macs they use. A Migration Kit is an overview of Mac OS products for a particular occupation, such as dentistry, accounting, etc.) This week we look at fibre-channel connectivity products for the Mac.

ATTO (http://www.attotech.com) offers a number of Fibre-channel connectivity solutions. The The Celerity FC-21PS is a single-channel 2-Gigabit Fibre Channel storage adapter that's designed as a high-quality, cost-effective choice for connecting servers and workstations to the Storage Area Network (SAN) fabric. The ATTO Celerity FC-24XL quad-channel Fibre Channel Storage Adapter offers four independent channels of 2-Gigabit Fibre Channel connectivity for embedded and edge device designs. The Celerity FC-42XS (dual-channel) and FC-41XS (single-channel) Storage Adapters are the next generation of ATTO's storage connectivity solutions. The Celerity FC-44ES and FC-42ES leverage next-generation storage technologies: PCI Express (x8 PCIe) and 4-Gigabit Fibre Channel.

The ExpressPCI FC 3300, single-channel 2-Gigabit Fibre Channel adapters offer high-speed centralized data sharing. The iPBridge 1500E/D & 1550E/D are iSCSI-to-SCSI, RoHS compliant bridges offering a storage connectivity solution for connecting existing SCSI-based Direct Attached Storage (DAS) using Ethernet technology. They feature one independent Gigabit Ethernet port and one independent Ultra3 SCSI port and provide near-native speeds with throughput of over 400GB/hr. The ATTO iPBridge 2600C/R/D is designed to provide a migratory path for organizations interested in using iSCSI, but have already invested thousands of dollars in SCSI-based storage. The iPBridge 2700C/R/D offers organizations a solution for transforming Fibre Channel storage devices into network-enabled addressable devices. The iPBridge 2700C/R/D is an iSCSI-to-Fibre Channel bridge offering scalable solutions for iSCSI networks.

CalDigit (http://www.caldigit.com) offers the the HDPro 8-bay storage solution. With RAID levels of 0, 1, 5, and 6 the HDPro delivers up to 370MB/s in RAID 5, and up to 400MB/s in RAID 0. It works with the Mac Pro, Power Mac G5, Mac OS X Server, Windows, and Linux workstations as well as other platforms. Each system hold up to eight drive modules in a rack mount enclosure or tower. The swappable functionality of the HDPro allows you to upgrade the drive capacity as needed. There is no capacity limitation to any single chassis.

The CalDigit HDPro features SATA 3Gb/s and up to 16MB cache drives. Each 7200-RPM SATA hard drive connects to a dedicated SATA channel to eliminate bottlenecks and maximize the 3Gb/s native SATA connection. With the 10Gb interface to the host, the HDPro offers 2.5 times faster bandwidth of 4Gb fibre-channel, according to the folks at CalDigit. As you add drives, HDPro scales in both capacity and performance.

With single parity in RAID 5 mode, the HDPro features an advanced distributed parity algorithm, accessing data and parity blocks across all the drives in the disk array. When configured in RAID 6 mode, fault tolerance is maintained by the CalDigit RAID engine, ensuring that the parity information for any given block of data is placed on two drives separate from those used to store the data itself. Pricing starts at US$7,999.

QLogic (http://www.qlogic.com) also offers a number of Fibre-channel connectivity solutions. The SANbox 5200 12-Port Fibre Channel Switch, the SANbox 5200 16-Port Fibre Channel Switch and the SANbox 5200 8-Port Fibre Channel Switch let you connect your Fibre channel devices. The SANbox2-64 Base Chassis (16-port) fabric switch scales from 16 to sixty-four 2GB and 1GB switch ports in only 4U of rack space. The QLogic SANbox2-64 IO module provides non-disruptive 8-port upgrades for the SANbox2-64. The IO module is an auto switching 1GB and 2GB Fibre Channel IO card that provides eight available user ports. Each IO module provides 32GB of SAN bandwidth; individual ports can be configured to communicate to your storage, servers or other SAN switches.

Dennis Sellers is a long time journalist. He started in the newspaper business, but has been in the online journalism business for the past 15 years. He's the editor/publisher of Macsimum News (http://www.macsimumnews.com)