SCSI as a network interface

[Joel Jaeggli]

On Mon, 31 May 1999, Bill Fredrickson wrote:

> Thanks all for the replies.
> 
> Perhaps I should have been a little more specific about my intentions.
> I'm looking for a fast, easy way to network a cluster [Beowulf style] of
> PC's each of which already  have SCSI controlers in them. When I was
> reading through the mail messages I saw what I thought was a reference
> to using the SCSI controler as a means of interconnecting the nodes. So,
> not being a SCSI expret,  I posted the message in hopes that maybe this
> might be a possible way of doing it.  

> I was hoping to avoid the adtional
> cost of NIC cards, switches, etc.

scsi controllers, or motherboards with them built-in are more expensive
than fast-ethernet. cable lengths are a real problem with fw/uw scsi 1.5-3
meters at most. 

Single cpu motherboard with built-in scsi is ~$360 (asus p2b-s) vs $120
for a regular p2 board $30 for a fast ethernet card and ~$50 for per port
for the switch, and the doesn't include the cost of the scsi interconnect
which will likely be significant...

> Any thoughts, and/or suggestions would be most appreciated.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Bill
> 

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Joel Jaeggli				       joelja@darkwing.uoregon.edu    
Academic User Services			     consult@gladstone.uoregon.edu
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