...the 10-25GbE rabbit hole... moving fast storage off the main system.

I understand this community doesn't allow direct cross posts, and I approve.

But, I want your input, if you'll allow it..

I made a post in HomeNetworking about...essentially offloading fast storage onto another system and using a very fast network connection to 'make up for it'.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/1ugnsvo/the_1025gbe_rabbit_hole_moving_fast_storage_off/

Body from post

Please bear with me... I'm exploring the idea of offloading my 'faster' storage (last benchmark peaked at 2684.999 MB/s read) to an 'older' system (with more available expansion slots) and using higher speed network interfaces (10-25GB) to connect that system and my main system.--> to follow up on that, these are FusionIO SSDs, they interface via PCIE slots, not NVME/M.2/SATA.

The oldest pcie interface I have is PCIE 2.0 PCIE 3.0 , the most capable system (using that interface) being a dual processor xeon system. Oodles of expansion slots, ram, blargh. So as far as direct to motherboard interfacing, PCIE 2.0 is the limiting factor. (other things such as CPU aside)

I've... 'looked' at 10/25GbE adapters... briefly, am aware they take a specific not ethernet cable...

I guess I'm just looking for opinions on moving/offloading high speed interfaces and fast storage arrays to another system and using a very fast network interface/speed to utilize them with minimal loss in performance 'compared to keeping it in my main system'...

Did that make sense?

Edit: I was wrong, the motherboard/server I have has PCIE3.0. It's from a ASUS ESC4000 G2S. So no PCIE 2.0 limitation.

As an addendum...

What I've gathered so far from the responses:

- It's possible, given the system that would host the storage drives has an asston of cores and pcie slots.

-since cable lengths are short, it's easier.

- NICs... not really specified, but...cable / SFP+ ? (so this takes a NIC + transceiver)?

--And since this would be a point to point network...well no router needed.

- OS and software on the host device side really matters.

tl;dr storage thought experiment: having PCIE based SSDs used for server acceleration, how might I connect a host system to a client system and have the fastest possible network connection so that it's 'as if' it's a local drive...

...because my motherboard is lame and not having 9 pcie slots.

I'm scared. this isn't genmay.

don't hurt me

or do.

lay into me.

I fully acknowledge that the implementation of this thought experiment, both initial and ongoing costs, would far outweigh the benefits of just staying with what I have currently.

But I wanna learn something... without paying money and then stumbling and learning.

Flay me alive if I've been bad, please.