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mohannitin

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SFP VS GBIC

Hi Please can some body explain me the difference between SFP and GBIC
can SFP module take RJ45 cable ?
Please if you can give me the pic of both ? is there any difference visibly.
Also if somebody can explain what is transceiver ?

Regards,
Nitin Mohan
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Zephyr ICT
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mohannitin

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I thanks you all , everyone has given me better understanding about SPF and GBIC
As pointed in the earlier post the difernce between SFP and GBIC is in the size.

GBIC came into existance before SFPs mostly for fiber connectivity.

The fact was because of big size of GBIC it was not feasible to provide more number of interfaces on a line card or a switch since it occupies more space. In order to resolve this issue people came up with SFPs which were smaller in size hence you can have more interfaces on the same line card or switch as compared to GBICs.

Let's tak an example, have you ever heard of a 48 port GBIC line card on 6500 switch. The answer is no, because its not feasible to have 48 big GBIC interfaces on the form factor of the line card. But a 48 port SFP line card does exists.

Coming to the point when to use what, actually depends on the line card or the switch you are having. Usually [not always], the line cards and switches comes with empty GBIC or SFP slots where you need to purchase the GBIC or SFP modules separately and insert in those empty slot, just like a 6500 chassis which comes with empty slots and you purchase line cards.
For more SFP you can go http://www.fiberstore.com/