Nice post! As far as software for the SAN, I used Openfiler which is a browser-based network storage software distribution. Installed it on an old DELL Poweredge with 6x 300gb SCSI disks and turned it into a nice iSCSI SAN box (RAID 5 gave me about 1.4TB!). Added Dual GB nics, gb switches which I then connected to 2 VMWARE ESXi hosts (free again though limited to certain features) and have a super cool lab. (you can bond multiple NICs in Openfiler for added performance fyi)