USB 3.0 Is Ten Times Faster; Get It In 2010

thefickler writes "Seagate and Symwave are jointly demonstrating the first consumer applications of USB 3.0 at CES, showing a Seagate FreeAgent drive running through a Symwave USB 3.0-compatible storage controller device. According to Symwave, this will result in 'speeds previously unattainable with legacy USB technology.' Which means, if you understand PR-write, it will be much faster."

Comments

Re:eSATA is here already

[Strange Ranger]

eSATA is great for external drives that stay connected and turned on. But for removable (i.e. flash) drives they can be a pain. Every time you pop a card in or out and then reboot the BIOS makes you redefine Boot Order, eSATA drives are just like regular SATA drives, not a "removable device".

As a photographer who unloads about 20-30GB of raw files every week from CF cards in multiple readers, I'm pretty excited about USB 3.0.

Re:That speed comes at a cost

[beakerMeep]

I'm not very knowledgeable about USB flavors but I think I'm like most people in hoping they just settle on a standard. The Marketriod Speak of the USB people is exactly what's been wrong with all of this. First there was Hi-Speed USB, then USB 2.0, then Hi-Speed USB 2.0, Then Ultra-Titanium Jet-Powered-Turbo USB, then something where they claimed you'd get 76 virgins for using USB.

Honestly, I think even some of the geekiest computer users start to not care when bombarded with all this nonsense. Ultimately it's a cable -- we want it to be universal, and fast. Nothing complicated there. Sadly the USB standard seemed to gain the most traction in the market despite it's fractured flavors/versions.

So if it ends up being eSATA, Firewire, or USB 3.0 or something else, I hope they just make it simple and fast. It's a cable - it shouldn't have compatibility problems or be used to confuse users with marketroid speak.

Firewire isn't dea

[trolltalk.com]

Gee, don't say that to the aviation industry - they've standardized on Firewire because it saves weight in cabling.

The F-22 Raptor, the A380 Airbus, etc use firewire and gigabit ethernet to save weight. With over 300 miles of wiring an each A380, cutting the weight even in half makes a big difference with an A380.

http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:L96bOxSv3V8J:www.critical-embedded-systems.com/meecc/2005/presentations/Keller.pdf+army+tank+firewire+combat+electronics&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=ca&client=firefox-a " JSF Avionics snapshot

Distributed avionics: display- management computers, integrated core processing, and flight subsystems

IEEE 1394 FireWire network links core processor and display processors

Fibre Channel links core processor modules and sensor subsystems "

The military will be saying "You can have my Firewire when you pry it from my cold, dead hands." They have the bigger guns, so I think they'll win any argument.

Chinese mandate USB charging for mobile phones

[AlXtreme]

A more interesting bit from TFA:

Not connected with CES but related is the fact the Chinese government has declared its intention to force all digital phone makers to use a standard USB connector from the charger. That would mean that a single charger would do for all of your devices and would save an immense amount of wastage and frustration.

Good call, I hope to finally ditch those dozens of different chargers in a couple of years.