[volunteergrid2-l] Solving hardware problems with software

[Shawn Willden]

On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 7:12 PM, Brad Rupp <bradrupp at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am not familiar with AOE, but I am very familiar with iSCSI.  I have built
> several SANs using iSCSI.  I'm going to have to spend a bit of time looking
> at the differences between the two.

I think the biggest differences arise from the fact that AoE is an
Ethernet-level protocol, while iSCSI is at the TCP level.  This means
that AoE has virtually zero overhead on the endpoints, but is not
routable.  iSCSI is routable and can be encrypted, but all of that
costs processor time on the endpoints.

Oh, another difference is that one uses SCSI commands and the other
ATA commands.  They're functionally equivalent, but if you're using a
different command set than the one supported by your drives, then
there's a translation required which is avoided if you use same
command set on the wire as to the drive.

-- 
Shawn