Methods, and associated devices, media, and systems, for establishing a communication link between a host system and a storage device are provided. One method includes an operation for providing on the host a communication stack including a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) module and a host physical layer module. The storage device includes a storage command extractor, and the method includes another operation for establishing a communication channel between an application in the host and the storage device, where the communication channel uses the communication stack and the storage command extractor. In the method, the TCP/IP module converts TCP/IP commands received from the application in the host to storage commands for the storage device.