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USB 2 Devices Not Necessarily High-Speed
mgcsinc writes "Yahoo is running a story on how some manufacturers of "USB 2.0" devices are making hardware compatible with the USB 2.0 standard, but not necessarily its high-speed component." Sounds like the complaint raised earlier this year.
Do the devices need that high-speed component? Does a USB mouse need to be able to transmit data in excess of 400mbit/sec? No?
There's no real false advertising here; just an assumption on the part of consumer.
Should it be necessary that they inform you of the lack of full speed utilization? What if it's faster than USB 1.0 but not FULL speed.
IMO, the only clearcut measure is whether the standard is met, and it seems to be.
The safest way to approach lava is to have another person with you and he goes first.
You mean my "USB 2.0" mouse is not high-speed?
This isn't much of a revelation, it just means that the USB connection isn't the bottleneck. ATA133 drives won't run at 133 MB/s, either, I wonder if someone's going to start complaining about that now. ;-)
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Well, many devices do not need the 480Mb/s speed as said in the article however, the devices are backwards compatible.
So why is everyone whining? Just have the anufacturers put max speed transfer on the boxes as spec sheet. Just dont buy anything from those manufacturers who dont.
And as a sideline about the jab about printers not meing "full-speed", who cares? Paralell printers, in epp/ecp mode, could only transfer max 11Mbps. And since consumer printers dont print very fast, what's the big deal? And it it was made to be fast, it'd have a network jack for 100Mbps connectivity.
Dude you have no idea how fast some of us point/scroll/click.
Roommate1: Whoa, what's wrong with Tod? It looks like he's having a seizure or something?
Roommate2: Naw, he's fine, he's just surfing the net after 2 quad-lattes & a couple of red bulls.
Wow. You really are as innocent as a lamb aren't you?
Look all around you. Take a very good look. Have a look at that McDonalds' "100% beef" burger that tastes like no other beef on Earth. Watch that WWE wrestling match that's about as honest as a $7 note. Watch that TV expose that shows the truth behind the "honest" business practices of Gap, Nike, etc. Read RIAA's latest claims about P2P costing its members half their sales revenues, and of a 40-speed CD burner equating to 40 actual burners. Pick up a paper and marvel at how many of your fellow citizens still think the attacks on Septemer 11th were carried out by Iraqis, or that WMDs will be found in Iraq any minute now.
The world is full of lies and deception. That isn't about to change. If you're going to stand up and complain about it, you could find a lot of better things to complain about than the possible mis-labelling (deliberate or otherwise) of a USB2 device.
I'm not trying to put you down or anything. I'm just trying to show you that this is a drop in the ocean. And complaining about drops when there are some big, kick-ass tsunamis out there is kind of ridiculous.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
This explains why I receive a warning message saying "Hi-Speed USB 2.0 device plugged into a non Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port." whenever I plug in my fancy new Nomad JukeBox Zen NX. I tried everything: uninstalling and reinstalling the latest drivers, third-party drivers, microsoft's drivers, different ports on the motherboard...nothing would work. Instead, I had to wait many many hours to transfer my music over to my mp3 player. On the website it doesn't make any distinction between Hi-Speed and Full Speed. Maybe I can return it for false advertising?
Does this actually surprise anyone? I mean these are the same people who have been decieving consumers for years with hard drive sizes. Do you actually think they're going to tell you the device doesn't work the way it should by labeling it as such? The record industry doesn't label crippled crap. Why should the computer industry? Why do consumers actually trust producers that constantly try to implement new technology that assume that the consumer is the one that can't be trusted? Does it make me angry that the producers keep doing this kind of crap? Yes. Does it surprise me? Not in the least.
The problem is that the boxes of most boxes are covered with pictures of people oohing and ahhing but don't have much information about what is actually inside the box. Even manuals (if you are lucky enough to get one) are very light on specs.
I see this as one of the more unfortunate side-effects of the mass adoption of computers. Most people will never realize their hardware is crappier than they thought, and the rest of us are told to shut up and be good little consumers. I get my revenge by buying multiple models off the shelf, and returning all but the one that makes the cut.
Mod parent sideways.
Karma is precious.
If you need to attach a device that can use the high speed connection, like a hard drive or an MP3 player or something, then stick with firewire. It's easier to deal with. Of course, USB is fine for your mouse or keyboard or what have you, but trying to sort out the differences there is just too much of a pain. Firewire has various speeds too, but I've yet to see a firewire device that really needs a high speed work at a lower one.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
The computer industry will keep making disceptive ads and lawyers doing class-action suits against them will keep getting rich. My guess is that the computer industry still make more money than they lose to the lawyers, so everyone is better off but the consumer...
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
Disclaimer: This being /. the above is more with regard to cameras external HDDs, and other hardware which would benefit from the higher speed.
The Mothership
Companies aren't just selling mice and keyboards as USB 2 when they aren't, they are doing the same thing for storage, scanners, cameras, everything.
If a consumer just looks at boxes and buys it because "2.0 is higher than 1.1: it must be newer/better," then they deserve what they get. All they have to do is look at the box or ask someone in the department to explain the difference and they'll realize there's no benefit.
I'm sure the salesman would be happy to convince the customer to buy the less expensive USB1 mouse, instead of the USB2 mouse that is exactly the same except for the price. Also, if you put a USB1 device on a hub with USB2 devices, ALL of them will run at USB1 speeds.
I do think it's amoral of companies to do this, the customer isn't losing anything. If it were an external hard drive, they would have a case.
Companies are starting to market USB1 drives as USB2. They are effectively lying to consumers to increase thier profits, and it looks like you are fine with it. Have fun with your new USB2 hard drive enclosure!
Karma: Meh (Mostly from meh.)
All it's saying is that mostly only hard drives and burners are using "hi-speed" USB. We all knew that, right? And if we thought that maybe printer and flash memory readers were really using "hi-speed" we at least knew that they couldn't take advantage of the full bandwidth, right? And we all have come to expect manufacturers to lie to us on the packaging, right?
Yes, it is disappointing that companies are using the USB 2.0 hype to sell lower speed products. But what's the big deal?
The only thing that would really piss me off is if the hard drive and cd/dvd-r burners WEREN'T using "hi-speed" USB 2.0. But the article says they are! Or at least it doesn't say they aren't. And that's my second point: The article doesn't really say much of anything. It only puts the question of authenticity in the reader's mind. I think it is a poorly constructed article and not very worthy of Slashdot attention.
I'm not trying to flame or troll. I am just really missing the significance of this article.
The USB2 does not signify high-speed of course. If you want USB High Speed you need to look for the high speed logo.
as in this image here: http://www.usb.org/images/headermain/2logos.gif
The one on the left is the high speed, one on the right is regular speed. Simple eh?
Weren't USB 2.0 "highspeed" devices actually the slow ones? So, if you have a slow device, it is highspeed, isn't it?
Or was it Big Speed?
Wait.
USB2.0 Huge Speed. No, that wasn't it
I'm seriously confused.
Your assertion that plugging ANY 1.1 device into your computer's USB 2.0 ports should slow the whole thing down is slightly erroneous.
The reason plugging a 1.1 device into a USB Hub that then plugs into a -SINGLE- USB 2.0 port slows everything else on the Hub down is that the Hub is plugged into a single port, which has its own bus. You slow that individual USB bus down to 1.1 speeds. The other USB 2.0 ports on your computer have a separate communications bus that continue to operate at the expected 2.0 speeds.
With certain computers/mobos I'm not sure if it's still common practice for every port to have its own separate USB bus, but I do know it's at least common for "Front" USB ports and "Rear" USB ports (that is: Physical location on the case) to have a separate I/O bus.
--Obyron
Uh. You're confused.
When USB was new each USB port on your system was attached to the same USB backplane. The bandwidth was therefore shared between all ports on your system, exactly like a hub.
Today it is commonplace to have a seperate backplane for each port. So plugging in a USB 1.1 device to one USB 2.0 port will not affect other USB 2.0 ports. That is because they're on different backplanes, not because the USB 1.1 device isn't slowing down the USB 2.0 bus.
Now, if you were to plug in a USB 2.0 hub into your USB 2.0 port, then dangle a USB 1.1 device off of it, it will, without a doubt, slow that USB 2.0 bus down to 1.1 speeds.
Period.
If you have a system with a LOT of ports, and you're willing to scramble around behind your system to plug in each device, then you're unlikely to hit this problem. As you did not.
If you're like most people and have crammed your system into a pretty inaccessible spot, hubs are the order of the day for plugging in the steady stream of USB devices that slowly creep into your system. And if a 2.0 device really isn't a 2.0 device, that will have a serious impact.
Personally, I just use firewire. It's faster even if you ignore FW800, FW400 is routinely faster in the real world than USB 2.0 (due to Intel's insistence on making the spec more CPU intensive). The downside is price, but if the uber-geeks of the world are spending serious $$$ on their systems, getting a FW/USB case instead of a USB case is a neglible price increase.
Unfortunately some things aren't available in Firewire form (scanners, for one, are hard to come by), so this USB-2.0-but-not-2.0 crap affects me too...
I'm not familiar with the details of how USB arbitration works, but a simplistic example would say that if one slow device and one fast device were competing for bandwidth, then the slow device could cut the fast device's speed in half by taking half of the time slices. Thus, the slow device can deny others much more bandwidth than it uses itself. However, I don't think that one slow device drags other devices all the way down to the old speed limit since the slices it doesn't use can still go at high speed.
Not only is FireWire 400 faster than USB 2, but FireWire 800 (IEEE1394b) is even faster than that. Built into new PowerMacs and PowerBooks (except the 12"PB), and available here here here and here (quick Google results).
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Do the devices need that high-speed component?
If the device is an external hard disc, capacious MP3 player, flash card adapter, CD or DVD drive, then hell yes they need it. If I bought a 512MB pen drive advertised as USB 2.0 and it only accepted data at 12Mbps, then I'd be damned pissed. That would mean that it would take a minimum of 341 seconds to fill even assuming the theoretical maximum transfer rate of 12Mbps with no overhead. That's about six minutes. Real USB 2.0 (480Mbps) would mean that the transfer would take about 8.5 seconds (again, assuming the maximum possible speed).
I've got an Archos Studio 10GB MP3 player. It runs USB 1.1 and it's slow to load up with music. It was also cheap and I was willing to accept slow data transfers for the low price. If I paid for one that was advertised as USB 2.0 and it only accepted data at the slow USB 1.1 transfer rate, I would be damned pissed and probably would return it.
Okay, there are two major 'versions' of USB, and three speeds.
USB 1.1 is the 'old' standard. USB 1.1 defined the 2Mb/s and 12Mb/s speeds ('Low speed' and 'Full speed' respectively.) USB 1.1 devices are fully compatible with USB 2.0 devices, but, of course, can only run at 12Mb/s maximum. Note that hubs that are only USB 1.1 compatible will only allow 12Mb/s maximum through them.
USB 2.0 is the current standard. It is fully compatible with Low and Full speeds, plus adds 480Mb/s 'Hi-Speed'. Any USB 2.0 compatible controllers (computers,) can run any device that supports any of the three speeds. USB 2.0 devices that are 'Hi-Speed' are also supposed to support Full speed for compatibility (For example, that 52x CD-RW drive should support Full speed, but will drop to 4x speed, when connected to a USB 1.1 controller.)
The official 'branding' of devices is that they should *NOT* specify USB 1.1 vs. USB 2.0. They should only say the speed they operate at. So Low or Full speed devices (mice, keyboards, printers, etc,) should have a 'USB' logo, with no version numbers, just the USB logo. 'Hi-Speed' devices (hard drives, CD-ROM drives, camcorders,) are supposed to use the 'USB Hi-Speed' logo, which, again, does not say 'USB 2.0', only adds 'Hi-Speed' to the normal USB logo. Companies that use "USB 2.0" branding to advertise any device are not complying with the USB group's marketing standards.
But, yes, a USB 2.0-compatible device can very well operate at 2Mb/s, or 'Low' speed. A good example is keyboards with built-in hubs. My old keyboard is only USB 1.1, so I can plug in any device I want, but it will run at 'Full' speed (12Mb/s) maximum. Newer keyboards have USB 2.0-compatible hubs, so even though the keyboard itself is 'Low' speed, you can plug in your external HD, and the hard drive will happily run at 480Mb/s to your host computer. (Obviously, you also need a USB 2.0-compliant host controller in your computer.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Exactly right. About 5 weeks ago I copied a lot of files (more than 40G) from my friend's computer onto my USB 2.0 / Firewire external drive. My friend's machine did not have FW but it did have USB 2.0.
If it wasn't for the USB 2.0 connection on his machine, I might be still there at this place waiting for the files to transfer.
Other options for external USB 2.0 devices are video capture devices. You just can't fit a true DV compliant stream into 11 Mbit without lossy compression (and then it's not DV anymore.) Of course this is where firewire shines as well.
If it complies with the USB2.0 protocols, but isn't any faster than 12Mbps ("full-speed"), it's still USB 2.0 and can be branded as such. And therein lies the problem, because companies claim that their slow drives, cameras or whatever are "full-speed" USB 2.0, and extol the virtues and great speed of USB 2.0. They probably can't get sued for this bullshit though, because they didn't technically lie.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
For a high-speed Pentium you will want a Pentium III. The Pentium 4 is only rated full speed.
"You just can't fit a true DV compliant stream into 11 Mbit without lossy compression (and then it's not DV anymore.)"
DV is a lossy compression scheme unto itself. It starts right off at 4.1.1 and then does a block compression on top of that. Uncompressed 4.4.4 29.97fps video is like 30 megabytes or so per second.
He also wrote:
"Of course this is where firewire shines as well."
Completely agree. Firewire 1 was faster than USB 1, and now FW2 is faster than USB 2. The problem is, FW is seen as the province of Apple and Sony and the Wintel dittoheads don't want to admit that FW is better for highspeed data transfer and spend a few euros and put a superior Apple/Sony technology in their machines, Bog Ferbid. Especially as it took Apple to drag the wintel world into putting USB into Wintel computers by abandoning ADB / SVideo cable on Apple machines - the irony being that USB is an Intel technology...
Innovation in Wintel is almost impossible - they don't have the profit margins on each machine. So you pay the Apple Tax and get the latest trick kit or you pay the MS tax and run with the herd. Now, if Linux had a competent FW2 driver and a vvideo editor equal to FCP and AfterFX, I'd be all over Linux in a NY minute. But the software isn't there, so I'm sitting here on my G4 laptop editing and processing video...
RS
I pray for the day computers disappear.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
USB as well as FireWire are still a single set of wires. Unless you use some sort of USB router or multiple controllers, all the devices must share a finite amount of bandwidth based on the ratio of their speeds.
For example: A device running at 2mb speed that sends 500kb in a second uses a full 1/4 of the entire USB bandwidth. This automatically chops the 12mb down to 9mb, and the 480mb down to 360mb. A 12mb device that sends 6mb cuts it in half.
By the time you have a keyboard, mouse, joystick, mp3 player, external drive, and who knows what else sharing the USB connection, you have a lot of things competing for limited bandwidth with the slower devices taking an inordinate share of the pie. This is one of the reasons I like sticking to the old PS/2 style Mouse and keyboard connectors. Keep these usually slow devices from flooding the connection. Particularily the high-res mice.
And then when you consider the 2mb/12mb/480mb numbers are the absolute maximum theoretical numbers without overhead, you realize that you get nowhere near this kind of throughput in the first place. Things can get bogged down pretty quickly.
Personally, I run two separate USB adapters. The built-in USB on the motherboard and a separate PCI USB controller. I leave all the slow things like keyboard and mouse and joysticks on one controller. I put the things that need speed like a dvd burner or mp3 player on the other one and make sure I don't use them at the same time.
When I type on my old USB 1.1 keyboard, it keeps dropping keystrokes whenever I type more than 1.3 million characters a second. Now with my new USB 2.0 keyboard I can safely type at 50 million characters per second without it dropping keystrokes!
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
I develop a number of video products for USB 2.0 and previously USB 1.1. I have some experience of driver development but I am technically a hardware engineer with a leaning towards microcontroller development.
Recently I started developing with USB 2.0 assuming that I could get maybe 50MB/sec data through (480Mbps - overhead) the high speed mode of USB 2.0. Note that full speed is lower than high speed in the spec ?!?!?!?
What I found was that on PCI / cardbus plugin cards, this was actually reduced to about 20MB/sec. This is less than half what you seen on product boxes.
The issue is that host controllers are at fault. USB 2.0 contains a number of slots in each frame on the bus that can be filled with data. If I remember correctly, there are 13 available slots for bulk transfers that can take 512 bytes each. Technically, 12 of these shoulb be the theoratical maximum limit to fill. In practice, many controllers only fill 3 giving the poor bandwidth as they cant keep up with the data rate.
The other issue is with the PCI bus. On many computers this is not fast enough to deal with a single device needing high speed bandwidth although in most cases it does not appear to be the bottleneck.
Most add-on USB 2.0 host controller cards contain a chip from one manufacturer (who I choose not to mention). These suffer the worst performance of 18-20 MB/sec. They comply with the Intel EHCI 0.95 spec for host controllers although the manufacturer has offered a new 1.0 compliant chip offering some increases in speed.
The best performance is when USB 2.0 is tapped from Intel North Bridges on the motherboard. 11 of the slots are filled with data and 35MB/sec can be achieved. Its still not the maximum performance though
If you are buying a PC, make sure you insist on built in USB 2.0 or all your devices may run slow. Also make sure you only use the Microsoft drivers on Windows as they offer significant improvements over others. Win XP or Win2K SP4 contain these.
Note that the USB 2.0 and EHCI 1.0 specs do not contain any specification as to the bandwidth a host controller must provide. Some chips may be better or worse than those mentioned above as there is no control on what a manufacturer should provide
If you are cursed with VIA USB 1.1 controlers (UHCI) having slow 2.0 device that will talk to the EHCI par of the controler makes LOTS of sense. The EHCI/OHCI are infinitely smarter and have a much lesser impact on the PCI than UHCI!
So I'd be happy to find a USB 2.0 mouse, if I had a VIA chipset!
Nitpick, and grossly untrue. As a matter of fact USB2 hubs have a TT controller (transaction tuba or some crap) each port of a USB2 hub acts as a seperate controller to 1.1 devices. That means 4 11Mpbs USB1.1 devices plugged into a USB2 hub each have the full 11Mbps of a seperate bus. You seem to think that version numbers should be used in marketing. The USB-IF has said multiple times that USB2 is not a marketing term.
Low Speed.
High Speed.
Full Speed.
Those are marketing terms, and those are the terms on the USB-IF approved logos. Do you ever wonder why some companies market without logos? Maybe their devices are so broken in their implementation that they can't get a logo. But they go to market anyways. Ouch to you, have fun with your non-compliant devices.