eSATA hub/switcher - even possible?

Im curious as to whether it's possible or whether anyone has created a switcher for eSATA much like a keyboard/monitor switch?

So two PCs each with eSATA cards in, both connected to a switch that, in turn, is connected to an eSATA RAID box. The switch determines which of the PCs can see the RAID at any one time.

Better still, a switch that can share the drive. Heading towards a SAN here though but not as expensive as FC?

Is this even possible? a DIY job?

thanks
paul

You wouldn't want such a device for various reasons. This is what is networking for.

I think it would be technically feasible to do it. The problem with a switch is that you can easily corrupt the data if you accidentally bump it or forget to release it from the host computer before switching it. Then all your work goes down the tubes.

You'd be better off with a networking solution that allows multiple computers to access the data. But with ethernet, you'd be limited to 1 or 2 gigabits unless you when all commercial. Now with 2 gigabit ethernet, you can almost get to eSATA speeds. (2 gigabit = 250MB/s, eSATA = 300MB/s).
So you're only going to hit those speeds with a RAID 0 setup with 3-4 HDD's.
Of course you probably won't want RAID 0, as it sounds like you need some redundancy as well.

You could probably write a protocol layer to get eSATA to act like a network, but that sounds like too much pain to go through.

There is an eSata hub out there. It's pretty neat. Check it out.

http://www.cooldrives.com/sahub5muussi.html