iSCSI on the ReadyNAS NV+ and OSX Snow Leopard
The Pro series of NAS from ReadyNAS (Netgear) support iSCSI out of the box. But the NV+ 4disk unit does not. However - a third party plugin is available.
Target
The provides support for the iSCSI target on the NAS itself.
There is a fairly good guide available on the wiki at readynasfreeware.
In short - it's:
- Upload the bin for the plugin
- Place a config file on the unit (root ssh required)
- Create a file (it also supports partitions etc) to contain the disk image
- Add startup/shutdown links
- Start the service.
I followed the wiki with only a couple of changes.
In the ietd.conf file - the line:
Target iqn.2001-04.com.example:readyduo.iscsi.target0
The format is iqn.YYYY-mm.tld.reverse.domain.name:descriptive.string.
The dd command (I created a 500Gb file) took 5 hours - don't do this if you're in a hurry ;)
And at the end - when it asks you to start I kept getting "failed". Turns out the install starts it unconfigured. All I had to do was a
/etc/init.d/rfw-iscsi-target stop
before running the start.
Initiator
For a client to connect to an iSCSI target it needs an initiator.
ReadyNAS has a page that shows how to install and configure globalSAN's free iSCSI initiator. It will require a restart of the mac. I grabbed the beta as it said it supported snow leopard. It has a few changes in layout - but the process is the same:
- Add Portal pointing at the NAS
- Add a target from the list on that portal.
I was then able to format the newly initiated drive and mount it read/write.
Speed tests
For this - I copied a 192Mb file back and forward. These are just for fun - highly unscientific - nothing done to check for caching etc, or other busy devices on the network.
| Device | Time taken | |
| to device | from device | |
| Drobo FW 800 | 8 s | 2 s |
| ReadyNAS NV+ iSCSI | 16 s | 4 s |
| ReadyNAS NV+ AFP | 10 s | 3 s |
| ReadyNAS NV+ SSH (scp as root) | 2 min 4 s | 2 min 2 s |
Conclusion
Well it works - but it's not a world speed revolution ;)