ReadyNAS Ultra 4 & iSCSI

[alexf]

Hi,

We have a ReadyNAS Ultra 4, and want to use it as additional disk space on our Windows 2003 Server. I think the best way would be to configure it as an iSCSI device on that machine.

This being the case, is the best procedure to install an additional NIC in the Server and link directly into the ReadyNAS NIC via ethernet? Does this present any problems?

Alternatively, if we were to run it over the LAN using iSCSI, can it also be used as a straight NAS? Or does setting it up with iSCSI effectively stop standard access.

Thanks.

[alexf]

Anybody any info on this?

Much appreciated.

[Grievous]

You could run a second network connection just for iSCSI, but unless you're using something like MPIO there wouldn't be much benefit unless it was really something specific you needed based on the layout of your network.

Yes, you can use it as a NAS with access via CIFS/AFP/etc. and as an iSCSI server at the same time. You just need to keep in mind that available capacity once you've created your iSCSI target(if you've got 2.7TB available and make a 2TB iSCSI target, you're leaving that 700GB or so for everything else).