Which hardware component is necessary to support Fibre Channel storage?

The necessary hardware component to support Fibre Channel storage is the Host Bus Adapter (HBA). An HBA is specifically designed to facilitate communications between a computer and a Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN). This interface directly connects servers to the Fibre Channel network, allowing for high-speed data transfer and storage device management.

Fibre Channel is a high-speed network technology primarily used for storage networking. The HBA translates the Fibre Channel protocol into something that the server can understand, enabling the server to communicate effectively with the storage devices. Since Fibre Channel uses its own storage protocol, a standard network interface card (NIC) cannot be utilized for this purpose as it does not support Fibre Channel communications.

While other options like Converged Network Adapters (CNA) and iSCSI adapters may have their own uses, they are not required for standard Fibre Channel connections. A CNA can support both Fibre Channel and Ethernet, but it is not exclusively necessary for Fibre Channel operations. An iSCSI adapter is specifically used for iSCSI protocol storage networking and would not facilitate Fibre Channel connections. Therefore, the HBA is the essential hardware for Fibre Channel storage support.