GBIC AND SFP

[Jitez1234]

Am a little bit confuse as to the differencen sfp and GBIC.

I have also come across gigabit Stack gbic. Any contribution to make this clear

will be appreciated.

Cheers

Jitez

[lgijssel]

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6577/index.html

Regards,

Leo

[bjw]

GBIC and SFP are both fiber modules. A GBIC (Gigibit Interface Converter) is bigger than an SFP (Small Form Factor Pluggable). They do the same things, 1 is just physically bigger than the other.

[glen.grant]

There are copper gbics and sfp's also .

[bjw]

Oooops, UR right, we have a few.

[kodanig]

A good article for the gigabit stack gbic: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/customer/products/hw/modules/ps872/products_data_sheet09186a00800a1789.html

Both SFP and GBIC's are interface converters but different formats and are not interchangeable. The newer switches all come with SFP gig interfaces and GBIC's will not work with the newer switches, conversely, SFP will not work with older model switches with GBIC interfaces.

[purohit_810]

Hi Jitez,

SFP is smaller in size as it's name- Small fiber port.

Gbic is bigger in size. it is occupying more size.

There are no differance in speed both can support upto 1000 Mbps.

Regards,

Dharmesh Purohit

[yimkwokchung]

Small Form-factor Pluggables (SFP)

SFP can be copper interface

[frederic.nilsson]

SFP and GBIC are just interface units that makes the users having a better choice of what to be able to connect to an switch, instead of having a switch model for single mode fiber(LH,ZX) , multi mode fiber, copper, CWDM and so on... The make an switch that have the logical interface and then just make the physical interface connectible and interchangeable in the switch.. Thus only needed to make fewer models.

The difference between SFP and GBIC are primarily just an big size difference, it's really impossible to connect an GBIC to an SFP port and vice versa, so there is no worries about connecting the "wrong" interface unit.

The gigastack gbic are for making an connection that you could stack switches with and only use one GBIC port instead of two if you use ordinary Ethernet GBICs for it.

Hope this was to some help/assistance?