Ask not for whom the bell tolls…nevermind. It tolls for Fibre Channel.

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Henry Newman, writing at EnterpriseStorageForum.com last week, speculates that 10GbE is poised to push Fibre Channel out of the market

I have been tracking the prices of 4Gb and 8Gb Fibre Channel (FC) and 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) for more than a year, and just recently I have started to see what I have been expecting: Dramatic price drops in 10 GbE.

The price drops started with NIC pricing, as that is the easiest and lowest-cost component to develop, store and ship. I believe that this price drop, combined with FCoE and other market forces, means the slow death of Fibre Channel has begun. It will not disappear today, in 2010 or even 2011, but these forces will change the storage horizon relatively quickly, given the potentially huge cost savings. Let’s explore why I think this change is coming.