help me built ISCSI target box

[azev]

Just like the title, I would like to built a iscsi target box that can fully utilized a gigabit network bandwidth. I am Thinking of going with supermicro board with 3ware 9560 series controller and 4 500GB 7200.11 drive in raid 5.
I will be using openfiler as the iscsi target software, and 2 initiator box running esx server.
I dont have a huge budget for this, so please keep this the cost as low as possible.
Any suggestions is appreciated.

Thanks

 

[LeadMagnet]

I would just go to PriceWatch buy a cheap efficent PC, and I would NOT use a hardware RAID controller, just install a copy of FreeNAS with software RAID5 or maybe play with OpenSolaris and ZFS with RAIDZ, perhaps DSL EXT3 RAID10 (Damn Small Linux).


My reasoning is that even a jumbo frame gigabit network will be the slow point not the RAID operations, and hardware RAID locks you into that model by that manufacturer, where as software RAID means any pc could read the drives.

I mention enegry effecient because most of the time the PC will be doing nothing, so 2 big drives may be cheaper in the long run and 4 smaller ones. Look for Via Epia or lowend 2 Core DUO and maybe a 80plus power supply.