Mike Doty

So I received my EFIKA board last week. My project was supposed to be to integrate the opencores wishbone bus interface to the efika, but that requires a FPGA on board. This batch of the boards doesn't have one, though there is a "prototype" area where I think one was meant to go. This means I can't really do my project, as I'm left working through slow i2c or complex PCI.

All is not lost however. I won't be lame and do nothing with the board. I've ordered a bunch of stuff for a new project(about $200 USD worth) a 40G HDD, passive pci riser, picoATX PSU(DC-DC, 60W), and a intel PRO/1000 PCI ethernet adapter.

What am I going to do with all this you might ask? I'm going to try to turn the EFIKA into a iSCSI target. The board isn't really designed for it, but it'll do for a prototype. I'll soon buy some LiPol(Lithium Polymer) batteries and build a battery circuit for the board, probably interfacing to the i2c bus. I plan on stuffing all of this into a case the size of a small 5.25" external bay.

For those of you who don't know, iSCSI is a way to send/receive scsi commands via ethernet. I call it poor mans Fibre Channel. I decided to go this route because there is no sub $1000 iscsi target available. If sucessful, this should actually have some market value for small installs that still need some form of shared storage.

After I get a working prototype, I'll work with the GNAP folks to make a id10t proof install for the board.

Wish me luck!