Everything You Need To Know About USB 3.0 322
Esther Schindler writes "After a lengthy gestation period, the third generation of the Universal Serial Bus is making its way to the market. USB 3.0, also known as SuperSpeed USB, has throughput of up to 5 gigabits per second. That's even faster than the 3Gb/sec of SATA hard drives and 1Gb/sec of high-end networking in the home. USB 3.0: Everything You Need to Know goes into plenty of the techie details. But is it already obsolete — will LightPeak make USB 3.0 irrelevant?"
Micro-USB (Score:3, Informative)
.. not to mention cellular phone market is finally starting to standardize to micro-USB.
Finally? I hope all the companies that implemented that horrible plug will go back to mini-usb. It is as big, by far more robust, you can get cables for it and you are not afraid to plug it in. And plugging in is easier, as the plug will "find" its way in.
There has never been a worse plug than micro-usb.
Re:hard disk speed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:But later in the same article (Score:4, Informative)
They are referring to the "B" type connectors which per the standard are only used at the device end. The 3.0 B plugs are not compatible with the 2.0 B receptacle by dint of having an "extra bit" bolted on, whereas the 3.0 A plugs are compatible with the 2.0 A receptacle, which is typically used on the host PC.
So essentially
- you can connect any two devices with an old A-B cable and it will still work
- you can't use the new cable with old devices
Which seems very sensible - you won't have new cables unless you get new devices, and you can't waste your new cables connecting up old devices that can't use their extra wires, whereas in a pinch you can still use an old cable with a new device albeit at lower speed.
Re:Micro-USB (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Backward compatibility... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:But later in the same article (Score:3, Informative)
Re:hard disk speed (Score:3, Informative)
eSATA does not always require separate power. Most eSATA-equipped laptops on the market right now use a port known as eSATAp which adds in both power and USB 2.0 compatibility. It's less common on desktops, but is gaining in popularity. Since an eSATA + USB enclosure is generally within a few dollars of a straight eSATA or USB model it's the best of both worlds. With the right hardware at both ends you get full SATA speeds on a one-cable power+data solution, but either end can fail back to USB 2 as necessary for compatibility with the world.
Re:Quantum leaps in speed? (Score:3, Informative)
One must always make an exception for Scott Bakula.
Re:SuperSpeed USB... (Score:2, Informative)
it started when Intel tried to trademark the 486 so AMD couldn't use it. The judge said that it was a part number, not a name, and could not be trademarked, so the 586 became the Pentium. Now everything has some stupid trademarkable term for it.
Re:hard disk speed (Score:2, Informative)
The one major eSATA issue is power.
Yes, power and hot swapping because windoze doesn't recognize the drive as removeable.
D'oh!! The two major eSATA issues are power and hot swapping and overly short cables that are very expensive.
D'oh!! The three major eSATA issues are power and hot swapping and short expensive cables and connectors that tend to break off easily.
D'oh!! The four major eSATA issues are power and hot swapping and short expensive cables and fragile connectors.
What about the fact that you only get one eSATA port if you're lucky and that's on the back of your computer sandwiched between other ports and nearly impossible to get to without pulling out your entire computer box?
Fuck it! Let's got to USB 3.0.
Re:Fuck Everything, We're Going to USB3 (Score:5, Informative)