[fedora-arm] How about SAN or other Network Block Storage on ARM devices

[David Gates]

Hi.

I've been tinkering with the Linux NDAS driver.
The competition for this storage system in the x86 world are Coraid's 
AOE and Linux' NBD.
They are essentially the same idea, connecting computers to the block 
device on the LAN.

NDAS seems to work fine, on my Fedora desktops, and on the ARM units I 
have tested: pogoplug, sheevaplug and seagate goflex.
They are running a BusyBox version though. I have not yet installed 
fedora on the plug to test it though.

I am wondering if there is any future using it with ARM networks.
I don't see much talk about using this type of storage applications on 
this and some other ARM lists that I joined.

I am working on the web scripts working that allow connecting the 
storage as a typical drive from my sheevaplug, but it looks like there 
is no big market now. So I am asking what users here think of this.

At first, AMAHI.org released a Fedora based plug version with Greyhole 
storage pooling by default. I was thinking it might be a good idea as a 
low cost, high capacity system if the plugs were to pool several of the 
NetDISKs together.

Shall I continue my experiments?

Do you think the growing power of ARM boards will lead to simply 
building in HD and such?

Can you see this kind of scale out connectivity in the future of ARM 
computers, using several block devices on LAN as a storage for lots of 
ARMs doing background storage and service?

Has anyone done multiple ARM computers connecting to a block device for 
central storage using a Global File System or Greyhole?

Thanks for your consideration