Fiber Channel to SATA or SAS conversion?

[rkruz]

I'm upgrading a system that currently runs from a 4GFC RAID rack mount unit via fiber several meters away to external packs (JBOD) of spinning disks. I'm Looking to replace with the spinners with solid state drives. Appear the vast majority of dense SSDs are in the 2.5" format are only SATA/SAS interface. How can one convert an existing FC interface to SATA? Or are there FC SSDs at 256GB?

Any thoughts or clues would be appreciated.

thanks!

 

[ddrueding]

I would probably look into an enclosure that takes SATA SSDs and converts them to FC. The other option would be to connect the SSDs locally to your system if possible.

 

[Pradeep]

http://www.areca.com.tw/news/pdf/Arecacasestudy.pdf

http://www.areca.com.tw/products/fibre_to_sas_cable.htm

Uses the Intel 800MHz IOP341 which is always nice. Delivers two 400MB/sec channels of FC (4gbit/sec spec of course downgrading gracefully to 2gbit/sec, might want to lock that in on the SAN switch if you are using one). Some interesting options for a full active/active redundancy scenario.

Here it is, an active external box:

http://www.areca.us/support/download/ARC6060/Manual_Spec/ARC8060_series_Specification.zip

 

[rkruz]

thats super helpful. thank you very much. Ill take a very close look at those.

 

[rkruz]

Those units will do the job! Can you suggest other companies that my have similar products just so I have a selection?

SAS looks like it can be cabled up to 14m distant. So I would have sets of 4 256G SSDs RAIDed by the unit and connected by 4 cables. (FC Host to SAS RAID).

This particular unit has 2 FCs. Does that mean It can be configured for 2 different hosts.? Ultimately I will need 6 FC hosts, each with its own RAID SSD pack. For the unit shown, sounds likes 3 units would be needed. I wonder if there is a rack mounted functional equivalent? Or one that will even handle 6 FC Hosts.

Any more thoughts appreciated.
thanks again!.

http://www.areca.com.tw/news/pdf/Arecacasestudy.pdf

http://www.areca.com.tw/products/fibre_to_sas_cable.htm

Uses the Intel 800MHz IOP341 which is always nice. Delivers two 400MB/sec channels of FC (4gbit/sec spec of course downgrading gracefully to 2gbit/sec, might want to lock that in on the SAN switch if you are using one). Some interesting options for a full active/active redundancy scenario.

Here it is, an active external box:

http://www.areca.us/support/download/ARC6060/Manual_Spec/ARC8060_series_Specification.zip

 

[Pradeep]

I would suggest discussing your questions directly with Areca support. Whilst I have had good success with their SATA RAID controllers (fast, stable) I have no experience with the linked items.