Fibre Channel?

[Patrick Finnegan]

On Sunday 24 October 2004 12:22, Pete Turnbull wrote:
> On Oct 24 2004, 11:22, John Foust wrote:
> > I recently inherited a stack of Fibre Channel gizmos made by
> > Compaq: three x12 hubs, a tape controller, and a Storageworks
> > modular data router.
> >
> > eBay prices are all over the map: some sellers trying to
> > unload them for $1000+, but the real auctions are going for
> > less than $50 for each box.  Each slot in the hub needs an
> > optical transceiver; these seem to sell for $10 each.
> > Cables?  Many offered, few bidders.  FC hard drives?  $20 each.
> >
> > This stuff cost a fortune not so long ago.  Why is it
> > rock-bottom now?  Will it ever be attractive to hobbyists?
>
> Because serious users have upgraded and the cast-offs aren't very
> popular, I suspect.  To users who think SCSI is odd, FC probably
> seems wierd for words (look at the interface on the back of those
> drives). They also tend to be small and relatively power hungry,
> compared to cheap ATA drives, and how many cheap FC-AL PCI cards have
> you seen for a PC?

Qlogic ISP2200s.  Copper FC for now down to $20-$50, with fabric and AL 
support, as eBay prices.  I managed to get lucky and get a pair of 
cards for $5 recently, from my "usual suplier".

> I've got some FC-AL RAID stuff, but it's on an Origin 2000, and
> anyway it's all 9GB drives.  Hardly something buyers would fight
> over.

Yeah, part of the reason I got the stuff I got is because the FC stuff 
was all 36GB and 50GB drives.

Pat
-- 
Purdue University ITAP/RCS        ---  http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/
The Computer Refuge               ---  http://computer-refuge.org