What the heck is the difference between these san switches?

[K.C.Leblanc]

There's two switches listed here, I can for the life of me work out what the difference is.

 

HP StorageWorks 8/8 SAN Switch

 

Anyone got any thoughts on Fibre Channel switches in general. We've had one HP (brocade) one fail after a year. I'm wondering if I should jump ship and look at another make.

[plexer]

The mosre expensive one supports "full fabric" whatever that may be?

 

Ben

[apaton]

e-port 0 is the key to this, the cheaper switch doen't have e-ports enabled (HP Power Pack+)

 

An e-port is a Inter Switch Link (ISL) this will able to stack the SAN switch together to make a larger/resilient single SAN fabric.

 

I like Brocade switches but I find Qlogic switches are just as reliable.

 

Andy