Fiber Channel (FC)

Fiber Channel serves two purposes. It is both a high-speed switched fabric technology, and a disk-interface

technology. It supports a maximum data transfer rate of 400 MB/sec (full duplex; or half duplex, dual loop

configuration) over 30 meters of copper cable or 10 kilometers over single-mode fiber optic links. When

implemented in a continuous arbitrated loop (FC-AL), Fiber Channel can support up to 127 individual storage

devices and host systems without a switch. Disk arrays and backup devices directly attach to the loop rather

than onto any one server. FC was first approved as a standard in 1994 and is primarily implemented in highend

SAN systems.

 

Quellennachweis:

http://www.intel.com/technology/serialATA/pdf/NP2108.pdf