---
title: How Gen 6 Fibre Channel Can Boost SAN Performance
description: Exploding data growth is not only putting pressure on storage capacity — it’s increasing the demands on the storage-area network (SAN). SANs are designed to offload storage traffic from the user network and provide optimal performance for read/write functions. It also allows storage devices to be pooled and presented to multiple servers as a shared resource.
---

[IT Solutions Blog | Technologent ](https://blog.technologent.com)

# [How Gen 6 Fibre Channel Can Boost SAN Performance](https://blog.technologent.com/how-gen-6-fibre-channel-can-boost-san-performance)

 Written by [Technologent](https://blog.technologent.com/author/technologent) | April 18, 2016

Exploding data growth is not only putting pressure on storage capacity — it’s increasing the demands on the storage-area network (SAN). SANs are designed to offload storage traffic from the user network and provide optimal performance for read/write functions. It also allows storage devices to be pooled and presented to multiple servers as a shared resource.

Despite these benefits, SANs are often considered to be complex, costly and hard to maintain. **SANs traditionally have been based upon Fibre Channel technology, which was designed to deliver the reliability and performance needed for storage networking.** However, Fibre Channel requires IT to learn another set of protocols and purchase and manage a separate set of switches. This has led some organizations to use Ethernet-based iSCI instead, enabling them to leverage the same expertise and infrastructure for both LANs and SANs.

Nevertheless, **many storage administrators consider Fibre Channel to be the preferred solution for mission-critical applications. **According to Brocade Networks, 96 percent of the world’s banks, airlines and retailers rely upon Fibre Channel to handle 30 billion transactions each day.

Fibre Channel remains a trusted and widely deployed storage network infrastructure due to its seamless scalability and Quality of Service capabilities. In addition, Fibre Channel is lossless — packets are never dropped, which ensures consistently high performance and low latency. With Ethernet, packets are sometimes lost and require retransmission, resulting in less predictable SAN performance.

**However, many SANs were architected using older versions of Fibre Channel that cannot meet today’s performance demands.** Fibre Channel products have been introduced in a series of “generations,” each of which delivers twice the performance of its predecessor. Gen 5 Fibre Channel provides just 16Gbps, which is slower than many Ethernet connections. Now, **Gen 6 Fibre Channel has been introduced, doubling SAN speeds to 32Gbps and providing an option for up to 128Gbps.**

Gen 6 delivers the performance, reliability and scalability needed for increasing virtualization workloads, new data center architectures and next-generation storage technologies. It is especially well suited to the growing use of flash-based storage. As organizations deploy more flash storage to optimize application performance, they require networks that deliver low latency, high capacity and reliability. 

**Brocade Networks has just introduced the industry's first Gen 6 Fibre Channel switch for storage networking. **The Brocade G620 is a purpose-built and high-density SAN switch that delivers breakthrough performance and scalability to support data growth and demanding workloads from mission-critical applications.

The Brocade G620 shatters application performance barriers with up to 100 million IOPS. It includes four Q-Flex ports that can support 128Gbps or be split out into four 32Gbps links. Delivering the industry's highest port density in a 1U chassis, the switch offers 24 to 64 ports for pay-as-you-grow flexibility and scalability.

By upgrading to Gen 6 Fibre Channel switches, organizations can meet growing performance demands with up to 128Gbps speeds. Let Technologent show you how a SAN upgrade with the latest Fibre Channel technology can ensure the highest levels of performance and reliability for your mission-critical applications.

[View full post](https://blog.technologent.com/how-gen-6-fibre-channel-can-boost-san-performance)

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