I'm going to get a lot of flak for this given what I've read on the forums so far, but I have my reasons - please read and understand them before commenting "but img files are better" or "use samba"
I need to know how to export a physical drive as an iSCSI target with Starwind VSan Free. In the same vein, I would find it useful (although not critical) to use the same functionality to be able to export ISO images as iSCSI targets.
Also, if I do export raw drives as iSCSI targets, will they work in a similar way to a samba share in that the data will be stored in a normal NTFS format on the physical drives and if the SAN died I could easily place the physical drives into another machine and not need to configure anything to access the data?
I'm a home user, not a business so have no budget for a full licence. Unfortunately the only three sections of the docs I've found reference to this and talk about disk bridging give no information for a free user on how to set it up https://www.starwindsoftware.com/help/P ... rives.html https://knowledgebase.starwindsoftware. ... ual-disks/ https://www.starwindsoftware.com/help/RawDevices.html
I'm very aware that in most use case scenarios img files are going to be better as they benefit from caching and are typically run on various raid levels for redundancy. I do not need redundancy or additional speed on the SAN as this is all handled by another PC. PC1, my main PC has multiple drives and uses StableBit DrivePool to create a balanced JBOD array of NTFS formatted storage. SnapRaid then works behind the scenes to give me full redundancy and recovery from up to 2 drive failures (A la Raid6 or RaidZ2). Drivepool additionally duplicates select data (photos, videos, personal docs, etc) onto 2, 3 or 4 physical drives (A la Raid1). I used to also run a ZFS NAS on PC2 which is now decommissioned and am wanting to simply add these drives to the existing DrivePool and SnapRaid array. Despite the two PCs being connected by 40GB/s infiniband DrivePool does not support networked drives and their workaround of using another of Stablebit's products, CloudDrive to map samba shares as virtual physical drives was slow and clunky. This leaves me with iSCSI as the only viable option if I run two PCs (the final option of course is run a single PC with multiple SAS expanders and HBAs spread over two chassis, but I'm having logistical problems with finding the right way to connect the two chassis without allowing for interference on unshielded cables - that's a project for 2021!) I've already tried for the last week to run VSan using img files set up on each separate drive but this doesn't seem to be well liked by DrivePool, reads and writes to the iSCSI shares are slow (I presume too many layers not designed to work together interfering) and I dislike being unable to access the physical data easily on the second PC.
Clarification:
1. Drive Redundancy and Data duplication are handled by another PC.
2. I do not have a use for snapshots.
3. Caching is handled by another PC.
4. I only have a free licence so I have no GUI controls of VSan.
5. I want to try raw device export over iSCSI to make other more problematic/picky (but also rather unique) software work better.
Apologies for the ramble, but I got the feeling from previous questions about direct drive attachment that without it all I would get is "use img files, they're much better!"
Questions:
1. How do I export a physical drive (rather than an img file) as an iSCSI target using powershell (or alternative) as a free user?
2. Will exporting a physical drive work in the same way as a samba share (I.E. the data is readable in NTFS format on the physical drive and host PC)?
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