Exporting a TrueNAS LUN over Direct Connection?

[IOSonic]

Edited for clarity.
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I want to export my TrueNAS LUNs over a dedicated connection to my mini server, and I want advice on the best way to do it. Both my TrueNAS box and my mini-server have empty PCI-E slots that I can use for some kind of expansion card.

The only way I can think to do this is over fiberchannel, using a couple of HBA cards from Ebay. However, as FC requires an enterprise license, this may be cost prohibitive. This setup is just for a home lab.

Would an external SAS card be appropriate for this purpose? I have no experience exporting LUNs over SAS, and have only been aware of its use in dasiy-chaining expansion bays to present more physical drives to a system.

My ultimate goal is to create a high-speed datapath between the NAS and the mini server that isn't dependent on the network.

 

[IOSonic]

I suppose I could also just get two used, cheap 10Gbe NIC cards and connect the two systems directly over an adhoc iSCSI network? Does anyone have any advice on 10Gbe cards that work will with TrueNAS?

 

[Stux]

Best approach is probably to have a dedicated 10gbit ethernet link between the two devices.

This is the approach I've planned to use in the past to serve an iSCSI disk to a mac server where the disk was hosted on the NAS.

 

[IOSonic]

I ended up doing just this @Stux . I have not found a lot of recent threads about which 10Gbe cards perform well in TrueNAS, but within the last several years, SuperMicro AOC-STGN-i2s seems to be popular around here. They also use Intel chips, which is great. I picked up two that I intend to connect directly. I'll post back on my results soon. :)

 

[Stux]

Chelsio or Intel have good support I believe

 

[IOSonic]

I've installed two SuperMicro AOC-STGN-i2s cards in a Proxmox box & in the TrueNAS, and I've directly connected them over copper DAC. Each port pulls 7.0Gbps+ with MTU set to 9000 & I have no issues thusfar. I was hoping for more bandwidth, but for my purposes this is good enough.

The cards were only $40 used on the site that shall not be named. :)