The original intent of Fibre Channel was to deliver a high-performance and extremely reliable data transfer network solution. Fibre Channel approached this network challenge from a different perspective than Ethernet and designed the intelligence and reliability functions in the hardware rather than implementing them in software. This approach thus provides much lower overhead than Ethernet. It provides a means of directly connecting a storage subsystem to a server directly via a single Fibre Channel link.
Data flow is in one direction around the loop.
Each port sees all the messages and doesn't respond to those not addressed to its port. A Switched Fabric determines the destination of packets and routes them via the fastest route available by using a Fibre Channel switch. Switches typically have between 8 and 128 ports. The total bandwidth is available to the ports in each connection pair, eliminating the requirement for bandwidth sharing and arbitration. Switched Fabric is the most advanced Fibre Channel implementation.