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iSCSI SAN for Linux
SuperSAN

KernSafe SuperSAN is an advanced and powerful iSCSI target and iSER target software solution for Linux, designed to quickly transform any x86 or ARM-based workstation, server, or embedded device into a high-performance iSCSI/iSER SAN system.
As a full-featured enterprise SAN solution, SuperSAN provides comprehensive storage features and robust authentication methods, including CHAP, Mutual CHAP, and IP address–based access control. It supports a wide range of storage media, including standard image files, VHDs, volumes, and physical disks.
SuperSAN also delivers enterprise-class capabilities such as SCSI-3 persistent reservations for clustering, synchronous and asynchronous replication, high availability, snapshots, and Continuous Data Protection (CDP).
With its flexibility, performance, and rich feature set, SuperSAN is an ideal storage solution for both enterprise environments and advanced home users.

Being a full-featured iSCSI target solution for Linux, SuperSAN supports a wide range of storage media types for creating iSCSI targets and provides comprehensive security, data protection, replication, and enterprise storage features for both small businesses and enterprise environments.

Supported Device Types:

  • Extremely fast iSCSI RAM disks for temporary network-based data storage.
  • Secure disks for each endpoint, allowing users to access their own encrypted storage protected by CHAP authentication.
  • Supports standard disk image files (.img, RAW) for creating iSCSI targets.
  • Supports Virtual Hard Disk image files (.vhd) for iSCSI targets.
  • Virtual CD/DVD-ROM emulator supporting ISO9660 images (.iso, .bin, .mdf, .cdi, .b5i, .nrg, .ccd, .sub, .img, .raw), allowing them to be mounted as iSCSI CD/DVD-ROM drives on clients.
  • Virtual CD/DVD-RW support, allowing creation of iSCSI targets using virtual burners and writing data into ISO image files.
  • Auto-mount feature for CD/DVD-RW emulation that automatically mounts a new blank disc after the previous burning process completes.
  • Supports physical disks (for example, /dev/sdX) for creating iSCSI targets.
  • Supports partitions/volumes for creating iSCSI targets.
  • Supports enterprise-class virtual tape devices for backup and archival solutions.
  • Continuous Data Protection (CDP) for iSCSI targets.
  • CDP and snapshot-linked targets, allowing access to intermediate states of another target.
  • Multiple-LUN targets, allowing multiple existing devices to be mounted into a single iSCSI target.
  • RAID-5 targets, allowing multiple existing devices to be combined into a RAID-5 iSCSI target.
  • Datacenter feature, allowing multiple devices from remote servers to be combined into a RAID-5 iSCSI target.

Security and Data Protection:

  • Provides CHAP and Mutual CHAP authentication mechanisms.
  • Provides client IP address–based authentication for additional security.
  • Supports standard image file snapshots for incremental backup with unlimited rollback points.
  • Supports VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) snapshots.
  • Provides true real-time Continuous Data Protection (CDP).

Replications and High Availability:

  • Synchronous Replication (RAID-1), allowing replication of any existing iSCSI target to an image file or remote iSCSI target.
  • Asynchronous Replication (RAID-1), allowing replication of any existing iSCSI target to an image file or remote iSCSI target.
  • RDMA-based replication support for high-performance and low-latency data synchronization.
  • High Availability support, allowing deployment of highly available iSCSI SAN clusters using two or more servers.

Server and Protocol Features:

  • Supports iSER (iSCSI Extensions for RDMA) for high-performance RDMA-based storage networking.
  • Built-in modern web management platform for centralized browser-based administration.
  • Server Pools support multiple IP addresses and ports, and allow targets to be available only on specific subnets.
  • Volatile and persistent Copy-on-Write (COW) protection, automatically creating snapshots for initiators with virtual write permissions.
  • Read and write caching using server memory to improve transfer speed and response times.
  • iSCSI Target Portal management, allowing the iSCSI server to operate behind firewalls.
  • Provides remote management capabilities for managing the iSCSI server from Windows desktops.
  • No restrictions on disk capacity, total number of disks, CPUs, CPU cores, Ethernet ports, or RAM capacity.
  • Supports multiple connections per iSCSI session, enabling round-robin and weighted-path configurations.
  • Supports 64-bit LBA, providing support for disks larger than 2TB.
  • Fully supports SCSI-2 Reserve/Release.
  • Fully supports SCSI-3 Persistent Reservations for clustering and high availability.
  • Fully supports VMware platforms and VAAI interfaces (ATS, ZERO, and XCOPY).
  • Fully supports Citrix XenServer.
  • Fully supports open-iscsi on Linux.
  • Fully supports KernSafe iSCSI Initiator on macOS.
  • Fully compliant with the latest iSCSI Standard 1.0 specification.