In response to market demands for reliability and low latency that is favorable with Fibre Channel (FC), QNAP Systems plans to incorporate FC SAN services into its application scope, making QNAP NAS a unified storage solution that provides SAN, NAS, and cloud storage features.

FC is a set of advanced data transport standards that form Storage-area Networks (SANs). Providing high reliability and throughput over distance, FC is scalable and optimized for data-centric applications. As 32Gb FC is now mainstream, and higher speeds are being constantly innovated, FC has been widely adopted by financial services, data centers, and the film/television industry for media storage and advanced streaming applications including 8K editing. 

“QNAP always stays attuned to our users’ requirements, and have re-examined the application potential of implementing SAN solutions using Fibre Channel,” said Y.T. Lee, vice president of QNAP, adding “we believe that the integration of Fibre Channel SAN services with QNAP NAS can fulfill needs in a wider range of usage scenarios for tackling IOPS-demanding applications and workflows that require reliable, on-time data delivery, while also allowing organizations to easily deploy QNAP NAS in their existing Fibre Channel SAN infrastructure.”

QNAP will collaborate with Fibre Channel vendors Marvell and ATTO to deliver 32GB/16GB/8GB Fibre Channel SAN solutions. A brand-new iSCSI & FC Manager app will be introduced soon in future versions of QNAP’s QTS NAS operating system to help with the management of Fibre Channel SAN.