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?"
SuperSpeed USB... (Score:5, Funny)
...seriously? Will USB 6.0 be super-hyper-megaspeed USB?
Re:SuperSpeed USB... (Score:5, Funny)
USB-IF Says ... (Score:5, Funny)
Fuck Everything, We're Going to USB3 (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, we could go to optical connections next, like the competition. That seems like the logical thing to do. After all, electrons worked out pretty well, and photons are the next particles after electrons. So let's play it safe. Let's make an optical cable and call it the USBOpticon. Why innovate when we can follow? Oh, I know why: Because we're a business, that's why!
You think it's crazy? It is crazy. But I don't give a shit. From now on, we're the ones who have the edge in the data speed game. Are they the best a man can get? Fuck, no. USB is the best a man can get.
What part of this don't you understand? If 12Mbps is good, and 480Mbps is better, obviously 4.8Gbps would make us the best fucking cable that ever existed. Comprende? We didn't claw our way to the top of the cable game by clinging to the parallel industry standard. We got here by taking chances. Well, USB3 is the biggest chance of all.
Here's the report from Engineering. Someone put it in the bathroom: I want to wipe my ass with it. They don't tell me what to invent—I tell them. And I'm telling them to stick four more gigabits in there. I don't care how. Make the wires so thin they're invisible. Put some on the outside. I don't care if they have to cram the extra electrons in perpendicular to the other ones, just do it!
You're taking the "Universal" part of "universal Serial Bus" too literally, grandma. Cut the strings and soar. Let's hit it. Let's roll. This is our chance to make computer history. Let's dream big. All you have to do is say that 4.8Gbps can happen, and it will happen. If you aren't on board, then fuck you. And if you're on the board, then fuck you and your father. Hey, if I'm the only one who'll take risks, I'm sure as hell happy to hog all the glory when USB3 becomes the computer cable for the U.S. of "this is how we connect now" A.
People said we couldn't go to 480Mbps. It'll cost a fortune to manufacture, they said. Well, we did it. Now some egghead in a lab is screaming "4.8Gbps crazy?" Well, perhaps he'd be more comfortable in the labs at Sony, working on fucking discs. Rotary storage, my white ass!
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we should just ride in Intel's wake and make chipsets. Ha! Not on your fucking life! The day I shadow a penny-ante outfit like Intel is the day I leave the computing game for good, and that won't happen until the day I die!
The market? Listen, we make the market. All we have to do is put her out there with a little jingle. It's as easy as, "Hey, connecting with anything less than 4.8Gbps is like carrying your data in a rusty bucket." Or "Your connection will be so smooth, I could snort lines off of your transfer rate graph." Try "Your computer's gonna be so friggin' fast, you'll get a speeding ticket."
I know what you're thinking now: What'll people say? Mew mew mew. Oh, no, what will people say?! Grow the fuck up. When you're on top, people talk. That's the price you pay for being on top. Which USB is, always has been, and forever shall be, Amen, 4.8Gbps, sweet Jesus in heaven.
Stop. I just had a stroke of genius. Are you ready? Open your mouth, baby birds, cause Mama's about to drop you one sweet, fat nightcrawler. Here she comes: Make that fucker backwards compatible, too. That's right. 4.8Gbps, fully backwards compatible cables, and make the connectors out of gold. You heard me—gold connectors. It's a whole new way to think about downloading. Don't question it. Don't say a word. Just key the music, and call the chorus girls, because we're on the edge—the razor's edge—and I feel like dancing.
Re:Fuck Everything, We're Going to USB3 (Score:5, Informative)
hard disk speed (Score:2)
I never see my hard disk data rate maxing out my connection speed, so I con't understand why all this emphasis on faster connections.
Re:hard disk speed (Score:4, Insightful)
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And the WHY use USB? eStata is great and perfect for external drive use and is far more common than USB3.0 AND has a higher sustained transfer rate.
USB3.0 is interesting, but useless for external drives. eStata is the right direction for that.
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Useless? Most disks out there can't saturate the 3.0Gbps SATA yet. eSATA requires a separate power connector. USB3 devices are supposed to fall back to USB2. USB3 is going to be a great solution for external disks that are carted from place to place. Meanwhile most people who have any number of external disks would be better served by a bigger case with sleds in it, because they're not moving those disks around anyway, and it would be more efficient, catch less dust, make less noise, etc etc.
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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 nece
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Watch your CPU when comparing USB and eSATA/Firewire.
Yes, I've been there, that's why when I buy disk enclosures I buy them with USB2, eSATA, and FireWire. Before SATA, I just got the other two. I have a disk hooked up to my PC via firewire right now because I know that USB2 will kill your CPU. USB3 is interrupt-driven rather than polled, though, so there is hope that it will not do this... when connecting a USB3 device to a USB3 host. It's not going to help with any of the existing USB2 crap.
On the other hand, I now have three cores at 3.2GHz and expect my n
Re:hard disk speed (Score:5, Insightful)
As a replacement for SCSI type use cases, of course, USB is a toy and eSATA or SAS is the natural replacement; but for the vast market for flash drives, 2.5 inch externals, and mass-market, works-with-anything 3.5 inch externals, eSATA is doomed compared to USB(especially since a USB port can be used for non storage purposes, while an eSATA port is pretty much storage only. In principle, a high speed serial interconnect like SATA could be used for other stuff; but I've never seen it actually done in practice.
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I agree. Different external devices have different requirements and trying to come up with a single spec to satisfy them all is going to result in a spec that is either too bloated it will be a monster to evolve or too full of compromises to be useful or possibly both.
I'd rather see one spec for high throughput devices like hard drives and raid arrays and a second spec for lower throughput devices like mice, keyboards and flash/portable drives.
This is not Lord of the Rings. We don't need the one cable "to
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USB 2.0-based hard drives are a bit slow, as are USB 2.0-based flash drives. With the bandwith of USB 3.0 far exceeding the max throughput of today's (and tomorrow's) storage, it ensures that the standard has a longer life.
Re:hard disk speed (Score:4, Interesting)
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What if you have 2 hard drives connected to a hub?
Backing up from a pen drive to an external drive would I thought be a common use case of bulk data transfer.Or from video camera to my mass storage device.
As soon as you allow hubs and caches and protocol overhead and software inefficiencies then a connection significantly faster than the media makes a lot of sense
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How about professional audio and video interfaces?
not just hard drives (Score:2)
smoother webcams, better usb videocards, and I want a faster picoscope. Also you can run more things through it, as its got more power too. So several hard drives, and a couple sound cards along with your webcam.
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There are lots of SSDs that are maxing out sata II/3gbps. That's 375 MB/sec of maximum physical bandwidth, so all the SSDs in the 350+MB/sec class are being limited by the connector.
Re:SuperSpeed USB... (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is the original nomenclature from USB 1.0 - "full speed" is a whopping 12Mbit/s (vs. "low speed" at 1.5Mb/s). Of course, compared to serial ports that were starting to push 300kbit/s, it was nice. So then USB 2.0 was "high speed" and for 3.0 they needed something "higher" than "high." Pretty stupid, especially when somebody says a USB 2.0 device runs at "full speed" it could simply be MarketSpeak(TM) saying that it won't slow the bus down below 2.0 but the device itself only communicates at 1.1 speeds.
( Oh, BTW, I vote for PlaidSpeed(TM)! )
Re:SuperSpeed USB... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why they should just use bandwidth numbers. I never understood why they started language unrelated to the specifications.
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"But I don't get it... They both look the same... So I should use this one for the keyboard, and the other one for the webcam? What about a thumbdrive? Which one would that plug into?"
These are the same minds that brought you "SoundBlaster 32 Pro Extreme Gamer - External".
Re:SuperSpeed USB... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SuperSpeed USB... (Score:5, Insightful)
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To be technically correct - the best kind of correct - USB-IF's preferred name for USB 2.0 is "Hi-speed" [usb.org], not "high". Presumably they came up with the name at a Drive-Thru.
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Seing how we have now Schutzstaffel USB - what was above the SS?
(seriously, it will get funny when buying USB gear in Germany - I might do it specifically for this effect after one too many beers in Berlin, some day ;) )
And as for Lightpeak - imagine a Beowulf cluster using those!
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So you imply using the proper name of the technology, "SS USB", will be so funny?
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...seriously? Will USB 6.0 be super-hyper-meta-speed USB?
There... fixed that for ya.
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Quantum leaps in speed? (Score:2, Insightful)
So, each USB iteration offers the smallest possible increments in speed?
Re:Quantum leaps in speed? (Score:5, Insightful)
That term's annoying because it's trivially true and means nothing. All technological changes are quantised. You don't get a continuous change from the iPod Classic to the iPod Touch, outside of a Cronenberg-and-cheese-sandwich-induced nightmare.
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One must always make an exception for Scott Bakula.
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No, no.
It means that it has to take over for some other interface protocol, and then, once it's finished that, it can take over some other interface. The only problem is the random messages send to some device named 'Al' that's not actually on the network.
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Don't forget the "Ziggy" CPU needed to handle all the processing!
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So, each USB iteration offers the smallest possible increments in speed?
No fair! You changed the definition of the word by looking it up!
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Proprietary (Score:2, Troll)
It really should be illegal to create proprietary connectors for anything. What a waste of time, resources, and technology.
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It really should be illegal to create proprietary connectors for anything.
I must say that I support your point of view but your suggestion would go against the "American free spirit" and stifle innovation at the same time. We should look for a better solution.
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The Universal Serial Bus (USB) has done wonders for creating a standard interface on PCs. Prior to the USB port, PCs were a mishmash of various proprietary ports, often single-vendor efforts. There was no effective means for transferring files between two PCs. ... USB freed us from proprietary solutions, proprietary software, and perhaps best of all, bent pins.
It really should be illegal to create proprietary connectors for anything. What a waste of time, resources, and technology.
Agreed. But back to the original quote, I've used PC's since the PCjr (actually before if you include a TRS-80 CoCo) and I remember serial, parallel, and SCSI. I was able to transfer files with no issues using flopppies (or the CoCo's cassette player). They were quite effective at transfering files, including, say installing programs. Perhaps I was just a mainstream user, but methinks someone is rewriting history.
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There was also ethernet. When I think of USB, I don't think "great way to transfer files", I think "generic I/O connector". Though of course any input/output stream can be treated as a file, but I don't think that's what they meant..
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RS-232/422 serial: always had the hassle of setting baud rate, stop bits, etc.
Centronics/EPP/ECP Parallel port: Were an ugly hack job for true two way data (and devices other then printers) until ECP standards came into place. You also really couldn't reliably daisy chain more then one device+printer.
SCSI (the parallel variety, not SAS): Was straight forward for the most part (just set a unique ID for each device). Termi
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SCSI (the parallel variety, not SAS): Was straight forward for the most part (just set a unique ID for each device). Termination of the bus caused the most hassles, plus it wasn't hot pluggable.
I use SCSI in a few of my PCs, but never had problems with termination. New internal cables come with a terminator already attached on one end and the host adapter terminated the other end. External cables are different, but I just attach a terminator at the end of the bus and that's all. Though I really do not like the VHDCI connector - it breaks connection too easily.
PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse:
Also, KVM switches. I am using PS/2 for keyboard/mouse because USB KVM switches are much more expensive than PS/2 ones. Even if I have to us
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Before USB
RS232 - Open standard
SCSI - Standard - No Pins
PCI - Standard
IEEE 1284/Parallel - Standard
FireWire - When available - Standard - No Pins
Where were all these non-standard proprietary connectors ...?
And is it just me or are many of these still around because USB2 does not replace them ...and USB 3 won't either ?
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So USB has reduced the connection types from 5 to 4 ....
USB2
PCIe
SATA
FireWire
USB3 is only likely to replace FireWire .... maybe ?
So 4 to 3 ....
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Yes, but the reason people design proprietary interfaces is because patent and copyright law lets them control which devices implement them.
Hence reducing protection of proprietary interfaces would lead to people saying "screw it, let's use the standard interface".
But really, why would you want 6 kinds of socket in your PC, or have to buy adapters that go in standard sockets so you can use their non-standard IO port? I remember the days of having to buy ISA cards to plug in your scanner, for heavens sake.
Cost of USB 3.0 vs lightpeak (Score:3, Insightful)
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Light Peak should be available by the second half of 2011 in higher end desktops from OEMs that have opted into it.
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Whoooosh, you missed it... by almost as many light-years as intel will miss the market by with LightPeak.
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Yeah, I still don't see it. If it was meant to be a pun, it was a bad one, and not in the bad-funny kind of way.
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Yeah, I still don't see it. If it was meant to be a pun, it was a bad one, and not in the bad-funny kind of way.
The commenter wasn't saying that LightPeak was years away, they were saying it was miles away, but miles are too small a unit so they used Light-years. When someone misses a target, even a temporal one, we don't say "missed it by a minute!" we say missed it by a mile. The author intended to use the term to describe distance, and you derided them for using the term to describe time. There was no pun, really, just your knee jerking. You should have that checked.
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Well my original comment was more of a joke, but he wasn't actually talking about hitting a target, he was talking about the time until this stuff will hit shelves - not whether it would actually hit shelves or not. I have heard miles away being used in terms of time and have probably even used it myself, though right now I'd consider "ages away" more appropriate and suitably exaggerated.
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We all forgive/rationalize Star Wars for running races in parsecs too remember.
Cost isn't the only factor. (Score:2)
Marketing and Political connections also have to be superior in order to win the survival of the fittest contest between technologies. One only need to reflect on the price/performance of Superdisk vs. ZIPdisk, or BETA vs. VHS to see that the more technologically and economically fit can lose to a product with superior marketing and politics.
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You bring up cost:
Light peak requires a fibre optic connection - so you need multiple chips to do an interface, whereas with usb3 the same chip that is your usb logic can also be your usb phy, so it will be the technologically cheaper solution.
So for use in mobile devices it will be cheaper to use usb3 because of the lower part count and smaller space requirements.
This is ignoring licensing issues of course.
theOnion (Score:4, Funny)
All I can think of is this:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades,11056/ [theonion.com]
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Sadly that parody ended up being right on the money, down to the two moisture strips: http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/14/news/fortune500/gillette/ [cnn.com]
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Sure, it's fast compared to outdated stuff... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sure, it's fast compared to outdated stuff... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like USB better if it wasn't implemented in such a half-assed way. The connectors are horrible (whoever thought that a symmetric-looking but really asymmetric connector was a good idea?), it's incapable of daisy-chaining without hubs, it's strictly host-peripheral and its reliance on the CPU degrades its own performance.
USB is a nice idea but sometimes I wish FireWire had made the cut instead. Apart from the fact that it can DMA wherever it wants it's essentially USB done right. Likewise, I hope that Light Peak makes its way to the market soon as it doesn't seem to share many of USB's shortcomings.
USB is great for HID. Everything else not so much.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
You can get a micro-USB cable at any halfway decent camera store. It is not that much more fragile than Mini-USB. They both "find" their way in; I find that most micro-USB connectors are more recessed into the plastic (possibly by specification?) and thus cheap connector edges are less likely to hang up, which IS a real problem (if an exceedingly minor one) with Mini-USB that you don't tend to see with any other variant.
There has never been a worse plug than micro-usb.
Clearly you don't remember PS/2 ports, even though you probably have some in your house.
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My main complaint about DIN is that it's a bitch to solder, especially the smaller types. I suppose it also works itself loose rather easily because of the circular form factor.
That said, I have a lot of affection for my IBM Model M, so I shall be sad when PS/2 ports are gone completely and I have to chance it with some inferior USB -> PS/2 converter that might not provide enough current, or doesn't have proper key rollover.
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My main complaint about DIN is that it's a bitch to solder, especially the smaller types. I suppose it also works itself loose rather easily because of the circular form factor.
The inherent problem with Mini-DIN (and to a lesser but similar extent, DIN) is that it's not self-guiding enough. You have to be within just a few degrees or the connector won't self-align. All the other common round connectors are non-aligned, so it breaks the paradigm in a way that is confusing to the typical user. And you can't tell with your hands (unless you are a master of negative braille, and the connectors are not particularly recessed) which way the connector goes, so you have to look at what you
Re:Micro-USB (Score:5, Informative)
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Light Peak will also include copper wiring for power.
All it'll take for USB to go away is for Apple to remove it from their computers, and everyone else will follow.
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Network? Home network, listen to me! (Score:3, Insightful)
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So what hard drive are you using that can store all this data at 5gbps?
Is it made with pixie dust? or does it just cost an arm a leg and half of the oil in the middle east? Oh wait, its just four hundred thousand 5.25" floppy drives in a custom raid solution. Thats nerdcore.
You must not have grasped the implications of the announcement I made. To the bin with you!
Design (Score:5, Funny)
But with USB 3.0, even though the plug looks the same, the cable has extra wires. Because of this, it will not work in a 2.0 port. The edge of a USB 3.0 plug is colored blue so you know it’s a 3.0.
But it'll still take you 3 tries to get it plugged in the right way around.
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If you think plain USB is bad, try an eSATAp port. I feel like i'm going to break mine every single time I try to use it :\
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESATAp [wikipedia.org]
But later in the same article (Score:3, Interesting)
On the plus side, you will be able to plug USB 3.0 devices and cables into the USB 2.0 ports on your current computer, but you won’t get the speed advantage.
So one place says it won't work in a 2.0 port, then it says it will .... gah! . . . . . I know they mean (at least, I hope they mean) that you won't get USB3 speeds, but contradictions like this doesn't help the article's credibility
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It's nuts. They've set it up so that the "B" plug is mechanically incompatible with the older system, but the "A" plug works fine. They should've made the "A" plug incompatible too. Then if you could connect two devices with a USB 3.0 cable, they would have to be USB 3.0 capable devices, which would be quite a good way of letting the user know whether they'll get the faster speeds.
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.
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eghads! (Score:2)
Look, this is the way technology works. A standard is invented, it is faster than the old, peripherals are manufactured and sold to the standard. The standard becomes prevalent and widely used and after a while the standard becomes saturated or limitations that were previously viewed as acceptable become more and more unacceptable. During this entire time the standards committee works on replacing the very standard they themselves setup with a new and better one. The new and better one will make the old sta
And real world speed vs SATA? (Score:3, Interesting)
USB 2.0 was such a bottleneck that a stopgap was introduced called eSATA, which allowed for external drives that used a SATA hard drive interface. Well, USB 3.0 pretty much that out to pasture
Sure USB 3 might be rated up to 5Gbits/sec, but in a real world test will it actually be faster than SATA? In file copy tets Firewire at 400mbits/sec is 15-50% faster than USB2 at 480mbits/sec
Imagine the possibilities! (Score:3, Funny)
Computer sales guy: Hi! Welcome to (insert name of favorite electronics store). What brings you in?
Customer: I need one of those "Leet Speak" things.
CSG: You mean a gaming headset?
Cust.: No...wait, maybe. No.
CSG: What are you trying to do with your computer?
Cust.: Oh! I remember...it's a Light Speed Drive!
CSG: You're looking for a DVD-burner with LiteScribe?
Cust.: I already have a DVD. What's LiteScribe?
CSG: Nevermind.
LightPeak? (Score:2)
Two words: Fire. Wire.
Hows that working out for you?
Oh sure (Score:2)
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The first mention of Light Peak in the article is a link to an overview at Intel:
http://techresearch.intel.com/articles/None/1813.htm [intel.com]
That article needed an editor (Score:2)
One problem with our post-internet world is that people think writing like this, which spoon-feeds you tiny bits of information, is superior to condensed but slightly more complex writing:
LightPeak is over kill for just about all HID devi (Score:2)
LightPeak is over kill for just about all hid devices and LightPeak will need be low cost and not be $20 cables + $30-$100 convert plugs / boxes.
USB will likey be dominant, however... (Score:2)
... Lightpeek will probably be an important technology for those seeking the best performance for a long time.
The reason USB 3.0 will be dominant is that it will for certain be much cheaper than an advanced fiber-optical cable which is bendable. I for one am concerned still how bendable it is - my guess is that it will be nowhere as safe as USB, and it will likely be substantially more expensive. Lightpeek might replace all other cables, and Intel might push it in their devices, but will others who now will
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Hmm, that might seem silly, but the question is right. USB promised 480 mbit/seconds, but on very fast hardware i can only transfer data at 28Mbyte/second. that is less than 50% of the promised speed or 17 bits per byte. (at least i would not be suprised if the 480Mbit contains a stop bit and a start bit for each byte . USB3.0 in ealry test reaches Speeds 2 to 3 times as fast [computerworld.com] as usb 2.0 Not bad, but not exceeding Gbit lan or SATA.
An other advantage, greater power control, and allow more poer for devices is
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But with USB 3.0, even though the plug looks the same, the cable has extra wires. Because of this, it will not work in a 2.0 port. The edge of a USB 3.0 plug is colored blue so you know it's a 3.0.
Fuck the blind!
they're only fucking the one-armed blind, because the other end of the cable has a different plug, at least in scenarios where a USB A-to-B cable is currently used. Also later in the article it says you can plug a USB3 cable into a USB2 port and it will fall back to USB2, so I declare this article to be a greasy, floating piece of shit. It's nice that it's written at a junior high level though, because you can use it to confuse near-illiterates as well as the computer savvy.
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I'm not sure I'd trust that article entirely. From TFA:
But with USB 3.0, even though the plug looks the same, the cable has extra wires. Because of this, it will not work in a 2.0 port..............
On the plus side, you will be able to plug USB 3.0 devices and cables into the USB 2.0 ports on your current computer, but you won’t get the speed advantage.
(my emphasis)
Anyone care to explain this apparent contradiction?
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Not just the blind. Have these people ever worked with average consumers? Even though the edge is blue, that's really not enough of a difference for most users. I can see tons of support calls because the "thing doesn't work when I plug it in." when the cable used was wrong. Also if there was so much break in compatibility, why not just change the plugs? It's not like having the same plug was going to help other than initial manufacturing costs.
But with USB 3.0, even though the plug looks the same, the cable has extra wires. Because of this, it will not work in a 2.0 port. The edge of a USB 3.0 plug is colored blue so you know it's a 3.0. The USB 3.0 cable has nine wires, compared with the five in a USB 2.0 cable, even though it's the same thickness.
Likewise, the end of the cable that connects to a USB device, such as a printer or external drive, is also different from the old USB 2.0 connector. Because of this, you can't use USB 3.0 cables to connect USB 2.0 devices. Also, if your drive, scanner, printer, camera, or whatever is a USB 3.0 device, then you must use a 3.0 cable.
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Lots of problems with your Codec (Score:2)
Claims of 5GB/s aren't even backed by the USB working group which says 3.2GB/s will realistically be the upper limit.
Clearly you fail to understand the difference between GB and Gb. Reread the article, and then don't come back to comment until you're a nerd.
All existing cable and plug combinations remain backwards compatible, but the article claims otherwise, there are only some introduced permutations that won't work.
The author first claims it won't work, then claims that they will. It seems like the first time he meant to say that you won't get the speed advantage of USB3 if you plug into USB2. You are both wrong.
And when did USB 2.0 become 5 wires?
Mini-USB [pinouts.ru], please try to keep up, if you can. And I know you can't.
The author attacks Intel about foot-dragging on the USB 3.0 spec rather disingenously since it was Intel that lead the charge on USB 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0. It was their technology originally.
There's nothing disingenuous about it, and you don't understand the situation if you try to apply that