iStorage Server Quick Start

iStorage Server is an IP Storage solution, you can use it to mapping your storage device to your clients in blocking mode. First you should create a CHAP user(secret is 123456781234) and group for use the CHAP authentication mechanism, for example, I create a user named test and belong to a new create group named Administrators. Simply, for using iStorage Server, click the "Create" button in the main interface of iStorage Server Management console, will start "Select Device Type" wizard, see figure 1, you can select the following device types to share your storage device:

1,RAM disk device;
In this type, you can create an virtual disk and store disk/volume data into the memory, which has high transfer speed but all the data will lost after computer is shutdown.

2,Image file disk device;
In this type, you can create a blank file or use a existing file, to store disk/volume data, so we called it "image file";

3,Security image file disks for each client;
In this type, just like 2, but all images are individual(Each client different), additionally, the images can be encrypted with CHAP user's secret. So you can use this type to central store safe images for your clients or employees.

4, Partition-to-Disk bridged device;
In this type, different from the above, you will use your existing storage device's partition, C:, D:, and so on.
 
5, Physical disk bridged device;
In this type, you will use your existing disk storage device such as ATA/IDE/SCSI disks.
 
6, Virtual CD/DVD;
In this type, just like 2, but the device mapping to clients is the optical media(CD/DVD), the image files can be *.iso, *.bin, *.mds, *.nrg, *.cdi and so on. So you can centralized management and publish or share your CD/DVD images to your clients.

7, CD/DVD/RW bridged device.
In this type, you will use your existing optical storage device such as ATA/IDE/SCSI CD/DVD/RW-ROMs.

figure 1

In this session, i select “Image file disk device”, 256M and Read Write groups is Administrator.

At the client, I use the Microsoft initiator, just do the following step to connect iSCSI target provided by iStorage Server.
Start Microsoft iSCSI initiator, On the Discovery tab, click the Add button under the Target Portals box. This will open the Add Target Portal dialog box, shown in Figure 2.

figure 2

In the Add Target Portal dialog box, provide the name or IP address of your computer that running iStorage Server. The default communication port for iSCSI traffic is 3260. Unless you have changed your port, leave this as is. Even though you're connected to the array itself, you still need to tell the initiator exactly which target or volume you want to mount on your local machine. To see the list of available targets on the array you selected, choose the Targets tab, shown in Figure 3.

figure 3

To connect to an available target, choose the target and click the Log On button. A window pops up (Figure 4) with the target name and two options from which you can choose.

figure 4

Click on the Advanced button and make necessary configuration hanges. The Advanced Settings dialog box is shown in Figure 5. And then input your CHAP user name(test) and secret(123456781234).

figure 5

When you mount a brand new iSCSI-based volume on your server, Windows treats it the same as if you had added a new hard drive to your computer. Take a look at this: Open Computer Management (Start | Right-click My Computer | Manage). Choose the Disk Management option. If the volume you are using is still blank -- that is, newly created on your iSCSI target and does not contain data -- Windows will pop up the Disk Initialization wizard, as shown in Figure 6.

figure 6

Just as is the case with any Windows volume, you need to initialize the new drive, create a partition, and format the new volume. Take note in Figure 6 that Windows truly sees this disk as just another typical volume. There is nothing on the Disk Management screen to indicate that Windows is treating this volume any differently because it is stored on iStorage Server.

Enjoy!