Fibre vs Fiber

[Cerulean]

What is the difference between fibre channel and fiber optics/optical fiber?

I know there is a difference, because one uses light and the other uses radiowaves.

 

[BigBadAl]

Ummm I think it`s just a localisation thing

Like fiber in US and fibre in UK.

Not really thought that much about it, I usually just take one for the other and vice-versa

In fact..... looky here

 

[moose517]

Fibre is more for storage networking fibre channel drives, while fiber is more for the networking networking side of things

 

[cyr0n_k0r]

FIbre channel is a storage technology similar to iSCSI.

iSCSI is a protocol that goes over Ethernet (or fiber)
Fibre channel goes over physical fiber optic cable.

 

[tangoseal]

Its all glass my man, all glass.

Fiber/Fibre Channel is used in high availability high throughput SANs and the other fiber same freaking thing is used for long distance networking i.e. 1000baseSX which in example has a range of 5km before you need to boost it with more Laser power.

People think that running Fiber optic lines is more expensive than copper, well its actually more cost effective than copper if you are using it for distance. It isnt really faster it just has no drag, i.e. resistance from impurities in copper, or crosstalk, or EMI interference. Photons of light basically move as fast as they can permitting the glass has no impurities in it as well, or the Comcast dude didnt bend it too hard and snap or crack the line inside. You can actually over bend fiber and not have it break but the bend radius will not permit the effective transmission of light energy. You will LOSE a lot of distance or your whole connection.


To get fiber to run faster you need specialized equipment that can use various sizes and multiple lines of fiber to send data at a faster signaling rate. Copper can do this to i.e. 10gbps ethernet over copper, but its much more expensive due to the range limitations and the requirements of repeaters or switches every 100m compared to fiber 1000baseLX 550m or SX 5000m.

Source: CCNA - Working on CCNP. But I DO NOT work on Fiber. I hate it, Its dangerous, it can (extremely rare) kill you, and if you break it you cant easily repair it without a specialized set of tools. Copper you just snip n crimp.

 

[tangoseal]

What is the difference between fibre channel and fiber optics/optical fiber?

I know there is a difference, because one uses light and the other uses radiowaves.

Actually FiberOptic uses rapid contolled pulses of laser radiation usually in the Infrared spectrum so its not visible to the naked eye and can do major damage if you think its cool to stare at the end of a fiber optic connector.

Copper, typically ethernet as we are used to calling it, uses controlled rapid pulses of electricity. The line is either hot or cold. It does this millions of times a second between ethernet host. Did you know that all your data, yes all of it over copper only runs at 1.5v-2.5v in the cat5/6 cable? -

 

[Uberbob102000]

What is the difference between fibre channel and fiber optics/optical fiber?

I know there is a difference, because one uses light and the other uses radiowaves.

Well those both use light (in the form of Laser radiation) and most optical/fiber/fibre is in the infrared spectrum, as tangoseal said above. The main difference between Fibre and Fiber is localization and who named it mostly as I know the Brits use "fibre" instead of "fiber" if I had to hazard a guess. Neither of them use radio waves to work.