An Exabyte White Paper Executive summary Exabyte Corporation 1685 38th Street Boulder, CO  80301 1-800-EXABYTE www.exabyte.com www.mammothtape.com March 2001 CS0527.00 Fibre Channel: Why another interface? By Lynne Avery Exabyte Technical Communications Group SCSI bus, Ethernet-based IP network, and Fibre Channel are three data transfer protocols that perform the same function — they transport data from one device to another. Their differences lie primarily in how they perform the transfer. Data transfer requirements determine which of the protocols is most appropriate in a given situation. A SCSI bus is ideally suited for high-speed, point-to-point transfer of large data blocks over a short distance. For client-server LANs where small data files are being transferred over relatively large distances, an Ethernet-based IP network is typically used. Both SCSI bus and Ethernet-based IP network data transfer protocols fall short when it comes to reliable, high-speed transfer of vast quantities of data over large distances. Fibre Channel combines the best features from SCSI bus and IP network transfer protocols, including high-performance data transfer (up to 200 MB per second), low error rates, multiple connection topologies, scalability, and more. In today's fast-moving computer environments, Fibre Channel is the data transfer protocol choice for high-speed transportation of large volumes of information between desktop workstations, mass storage subsystems, peripherals, and host systems. p1   p2   p3   p4   p5   p6   p7   p8   p9   p10   p11   p12   p13   p14   p15   p16   p17   p18