Figure 2.2.1 – Thecus Technology i Series User Manual
Page 10
The iSCSI target is the storage device itself or an appliance which controls and
serves volumes or virtual volumes. The target is the device which performs SCSI
commands or bridges it to an attached storage device. iSCSI targets can be
disks, tapes, RAID arrays, tape libraries, and etc.
Host 2
(initiator)
Host 1
(initiator)
iSCSI
HBA
NIC
IP SAN
Figure 2.2.1
The host side needs an iSCSI initiator. The initiator is a driver which handles the
SCSI traffic over iSCSI. The initiator can be software or hardware (HBA). Please
refer to the certification list of iSCSI HBA(s) in Appendix A. OS native initiators or
other software initiators use the standard TCP/IP stack and Ethernet hardware,
while iSCSI HBA(s) use their own iSCSI and TCP/IP stacks on board.
Hardware iSCSI HBA(s) would provide its initiator tool. Please refer to the
vendors’ HBA user manual. Microsoft, Linux and Mac provide software iSCSI
initiator driver. Below are the available links:
1. Link to download the Microsoft iSCSI software initiator:
Please refer to Appendix C for Microsoft iSCSI initiator installation
procedure.
2. Linux iSCSI initiator is also available. For different kernels, there are
different iSCSI drivers. Please check Appendix A for software iSCSI
initiator certification list. If user needs the latest Linux iSCSI initiator,
please visit Open-iSCSI project for most update information. Linux-
iSCSI (sfnet) and Open-iSCSI projects merged in April 11, 2005.
iSCSI device 1
(target)
iSCSI device 2
(target)
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