Coraid is shipping a smaller version of its innovative SAN (storage-attached network) device for Linux servers. The 1U EtherDrive uses the open ATA-over-Ethernet (AoE) protocol, supports up to four user-installed SATA disks, and can be set up in a variety of RAID configurations.

Coraid's SAN devices are connected over Gigabit Ethernet to Linux servers, where they appear as local disks. They use the AoE protocol, an open standard that Coraid developed to enable SAN devices to be built from commodity PC parts, rather than expensive Fiber Channel and SCSI parts. The company says the protocol is light enough for “any host” to saturate its Ethernet connection without depleting CPU cycles.

AoE is a lighter protocol than iSCSI, according to Coraid
Coraid first submitted AoE drivers to the Linux kernel mailing list in April of 2004, and AoE support was added to the mainstream 2.6.11 kernel in January of this year. Early customers have primarily been scientific and government research facilities, such as the NSC (National Supercomputer Center), USGS (US Geological Survey), and NASA, although budget Web hosting provider Hostway is also a customer, Coraid says.

Coraid's original EtherDrive holds 10 IDE disks and costs $2,500. It shipped in June of 2004, followed by an SATA version in May of this year.

1U Etherdrive

Coraid says its 1U EtherDrive aims to meet demand for simple, inexpensive SAN devices that can be distributed throughout facilities. Additionally, the new Coraid product adds support for new RAID configurations, including RAID 10 (1+0).

The 1U EtherDrive provides four hot-swap drive bays that accommodate user-installed SATA drives, for a capacity of 1.6TB when using 400GB drives. Like Coraid's larger 3U products, the 1U EtherDrive offers additional scalability through cascading. Coraid says each chassis provides 200MB/sec of storage access.

Availability

The 1U EtherDrive is available now, direct from Coraid, priced at $1,995.00.

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