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Everything You Need To Know About USB 3.0
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?"
...seriously? Will USB 6.0 be super-hyper-megaspeed USB?
If a man empties his purse into his head no man can take it from him. An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
So, each USB iteration offers the smallest possible increments in speed?
It really should be illegal to create proprietary connectors for anything. What a waste of time, resources, and technology.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
... fuck everything, we're going to plaid.
My work here is dung.
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.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
One detail missing from the article was the relative costs of the two technologies, with the popularity of net books and the like the cheaper technology will probably come out ahead in the long run.
Monstar L
All I can think of is this:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades,11056/
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
SATA is up to 6.0 Gb/s now, and networking is starting to hit 10Gb/s.
Contrary to the lame doomsday message IFTA, USB isn't going away, people. I see all the millions of devices that use USB for data transfer, power charging, ect. not to mention cellular phone market is finally starting to standardize to micro-USB. On top of that, there's too many TTL 5v devices out there built and designed around USB that it would cause some serious chaos if it did go away. There's no way that something like LightPeak is going to come in and whisk it off of computer hardware manufacturer's list of "things to provide". It may be a high-speed fad like Firewire or something of the recent past, but USB is here to stay.
Fuck the blind!
Home network, let me introduce you to your new friend USB 3.0. He is really fast, so I expect the rest of you to keep up! Don't be the bottleneck and you get to stay right where you are instead of being tossed in the bin.
Home of The Suki Series
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.
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 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 entirely missed in the article.
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 standard obsolete, this is the normal course of action in technology.
Now why on earth would you ask if something else will make the new standard obsolete? Does the submitter have any experience with IT at all? I'll tell you what, you know what they're doing right now? They're working on USB 4!
.. 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.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
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
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Claims of 5GB/s aren't even backed by the USB working group which says 3.2GB/s will realistically be the upper limit.
All existing cable and plug combinations remain backwards compatible, but the article claims otherwise, there are only some introduced permutations that won't work.
And when did USB 2.0 become 5 wires?
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.
But what can one expect from a technology website that censors the word 'assuming' (comes out as ***uming, I shit you not!).
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.
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, 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 word. Or perhaps you don't understand the word? The foot-dragging is only made more apparent due to intel's backing of LightPeak. Are you paying attention to the same world as the rest of us?
But what can one expect from a technology website that censors the word 'assuming' (comes out as ***uming, I shit you not!).
The article is crap. Unfortunately, you did not pick on its weak points except relating compatibility, and then you failed. Try harder.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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
People have a hard enough time saying USB (I often hear UBS). I can imagine this conversation taking place:
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.
http://www.bynarystudio.com
An other advantage, greater power control, and allow more poer for devices is entirely missed in the article.
I actually read the article, and no it isn't.
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.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Two words: Fire. Wire.
Hows that working out for you?
Tell us the USB 3.0 definition (super speed usb, duh), but nothing on LightPeak? WTF?
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:
We're not kindergartners. Try:
Futurist Traditionalism
That sounds about right to me. I calculate 13.88 minutes. I get 30 MBytes/sec over USB2 to a Western Digital pocket drive from the new 2010 Mac Mini.
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.
... 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 have to pay Intel royalties every time? USB 3.0 is free to use and a much safer bet, however we will likely see both in premium machines. USB 3.0 will be fast enough for most people for now. We can also assume there will be an USB 4.0 coming when the demand actually gets there as they will accept paying Intel the royalties for the premium machines where they can recover the cost and at the same time earn money, but cannot recover the cost when we want that speed in a budget machine... My guess is that USB will remain relevant until we remove the cables permanently, maybe something like lightfleet (http://lightfleet.com/) but a version which would not get interrupted by someone walking in between or something.
...difference between GB and Gb.
Let's pretend for a moment that the suffix was correctly capitalised. Was that so hard? But you feel it necessary to write personal insults because of a misused "shift"? Wow. Definitely appropriate reaction.
[RE: 5 wires]... Mini-USB
Yes, that would be a plug, note I said "wires". That 5th pin (if it's present at all) is always connected to ground in reality and never appears as a wire. It's the one whose role is being replaced by a protocol change in USB 3.0 because nobody ever implemented it. The cable itself always has 4 wires.
[RE: disingenuous]... perhaps you don't understand the word?
The author knows a reasonable amount about Intel involvement, including their presence in the USB working group. Despite knowing this, you are of the opinion that the author genuinely avoided learning that Intel were the originators?
Disingenuous: Adjective: Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.
Still seems applicable.
I am quite confident you'll reply again and am looking forward to reading it. I promise I'll make an effort to check back too, though I have a tendency to lose interest with those who can't tell the difference between wit and Tourette's Syndrome.
No wireless. Less speed than LightPeak. Lame.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
How does Light Peak link to the video card anyways?
I think that Light Peak is trying to put to much in to one system.
Ethernet links to other stuff out side of the local system and putting that will just lead to a Light peak to E-net box needing to be at the end of a cable.
Video and Sound? the AV world is just about ALL HDMI and HDMI is DVI + sound and many sound systems have TOSLINK / S/PDIF Optical or BNC. Display port is in some dispays. But as long as HDMI is on all the cable, dvd, bluray, game systems and sat boxes it will not go away.
Maybe stuff like External HDD's but E-sata does not need bridge chips.
Maybe can make for External PCI-e boxes but the bridge chip lag may slow it down.
It does not mean what you think it means.
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First the good, his example time for a file copy with USB 2.0 is realistic, taking into account all the USB overhead that makes 480mbps USB slower than 400mbps Firewire... But then his example time for a file copy with USB 3.0 is only 3.5 times faster, or an actual throughput of about 895mbps. Now I seriously doubt that USB 3.0 is going have 82% overhead and only offer 18% data transfer out of that 5gbps. I suspect that he's quoting from tests where current devices limited the throughput, not USB 3.0.
Then there's his explanation that you can't plug a USB 3.0 cable into a USB 2.0 port, and you can't use a 2.0 cable with a 3.0 device, but you can plug 3.0 devices and cables into your 2.0 ports. Uhm, excuse me, but which is it???
Stop using those crappy external drives as a benchmark - a lot of them are made from RMA'd hard disks, disks that failed QC at their rated spec, etc.
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.
The seekers do no need truth, the seekers do find truth and the finding do be painful
It's dead Jim, right out the gate. (Yes, I own a USB 3 drive)
It might start to take off but Intel couldn't care less about it, they are banking on lightpeak and frankly, I don't blame them in the slightest - it might be one of those promises which actually sticks with IT for a while - it really does look like it could last decades.
USB 2 wasn't as fast as claimed. firewire consistently beat it everytime despite the theoretically higher bandwidth promoted by USB 2. In addition, its design made it poor for some situations. While USB cost less due to its primitive nature, high speed USB 2 devices ended up with just as much overhead but the mass production kept them cheaper (and that firewire was seen as a premium feature.)
Instead of hacking old methods to create complex and STILL lacking new versions can't we finally start to produce some new standards that are good at what they do and won't need to be hacked further? USB3's hack to stick TWO different kinds of connections into 1 expensive cable is ridiculous!
I'd like something that took the best of USB and firewire and had the bandwidth to kill off Display Port.... LightPeak looks like it could be the solution! But they'll probably come up with something wrong in the protocol because some nerd doesn't want to waste a few bytes so it can be flexible enough to address some future issue which will end up in a version 2.... Add a few extra unused fibers to the cable; create a means for speed control so we don't have version 1,2,3 cables as well... and USE ONLY ONE KIND OF PLUG!
PLEASE make LightPeak have a little overhead; it has the bandwidth! If the hardware costs more for a while, it'll come back down eventually.
We don't need something to replace SATA; because SATA is specialized and speed/cost needy it will always win over a generic solution. Consumer level devices could skip it but the pros will want the benefits of a niche standard and cost will likely end up with internal drives using the same thing.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
So it's not just a truck you can dump things on?
The IQ test is a pile of shit. You cannot test for intelligence short of examining the works of an individual. The whole IQ test has been debunked for decades.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Genetics play a bigger role than you think. I am not racist in the slightest, and as a matter of fact my wife is black. However, if you examine the performance of various races in various situations you will see there is some correlation with certain races being better at certain things. Its not a bad thing, its simply evolution. For example, it has been suggested the development of white skin in humans was due to an advantage lighter skinned people have in latitudes closer to the poles. Basically white skin enables increased vitamin D production from UV light in those latitudes. Its absurd to think there are absolutely no differences in people whose ancestry stretches back thousands of years with an isolated group of people. If human beings never invented ships and airplanes, the whole human race would be well on its way to being separate species. As far as the argument that American black people are a certain way.. if you think of culture as an evolving thing, their culture evolved to survive in the environment of the US, so you only have our forefathers to blame for it.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
My point is that and what I strongly believe is Jews were in fact slaves in Egypt. Even with that 'assumption' - right now and back then most Jews were/are very educated people. Now it could be because as you believe Jews were not slaves in Egypt - I am not saying you're wrong. I am just saying what I strongly believe and that Jews were slaves in Egypt and look at them now. Now your argument could be; well it was really long time when Jews were slaves Egypt, at least much longer before Africans were slaves in US and therefore the affects haven't passed yet - and that one I strongly believe is true as well.
Its nice to be important but its more important to be nice
You can't get a 10-Gibabit USB 3.0 Ethernet adapter and download files at 1.2 gigabytes / second.
By the time we have devices and computers actually shipping using the USB 3.0 standard, 1 Gigabit Ethernet will be what 10 Megabit Ethernet is today... obsoleted, and slow as hell... long since replaced by 100 Gbit.
Light Peak sounds promising but I can just imagine how many new cables I will need to buy each year. With a USB cable, you can twist it, bend it, roll over it with a chair, etc. and it will still function. A Light Peak cable is a fiber optics cable. Technology has come a long way with fiber optics, but the one area that has yet to be overcome is durability...
David
From TFA:
> [...] SuperSpeed USB, has throughput of up to 5 gigabits per second.
> it would take 14 minutes to transfer 25GB of data over USB 2.0,
> but just four minutes with USB SuperSpeed.
5 gigabits per second
25 gigabits per 5 seconds
25 gigabytes per 5*8 = 40 seconds
no?
S S D
SSDs like RealSSD can already saturate SATA2 at 300MB/s => 2.4Gb/s... that's one that comes close to 75% of the practical bandwidth of "SuperSpeed" at 3.2 Gb/s.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
If you think there is only one 'American culture' you need to travel outside of your suburb.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
If you actually want to test the limits of the bus, a test with SSDs would be far more realistic. Standards like this are designed to support what people will be doing a decade from now, not so much what they are doing today.
Apple will put LightPeak in all their products and leave everything else out, setting off a wave of LightPeak accessories. Nobody else has PC customers who are willing to pay for something new, or the ability to release hardware and software support simultaneously, or a line of 100 million consumer products with just one wired port. Apple is already using 10v (like LightPeak) in their USB, and iPad requires it.
the other problem, is that this is a theoretical maximum, which isn't guaranteed. (Remembre the comparison between FireWire 400 and USB 2 480).
the legal people might be afraid of some class action suit if consumer realises the most of the timem their gizmo only communicate at a fraction of that speed.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I'll just give you this, as a gift.
Go read more. Read the research on IQ for yourself. Understand what the scientists have found as evidence for causes of differences.
Seriously, educate yourself so you don't have to live in ignorance all your life, the way out of misery is open to you.
Or, go on as you are, believe that the earth is flat, that evolution is a lie, etc. Your choice, but it's really your misery.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
But is it already obsolete -- will LightPeak make USB 3.0 irrelevant?
No. Presumably USB 3.0 will be backwards compatible with USB 2 and 1. Therefore, it will continue to be the standard. Backwards compatibility is king in desktop computing.
Or is the author writing this from an Itanium-CPU machine?
Education is a wonder, really. Go learn. You don't have to be laughed at behind your back all your life. You don't have to live with people wondering if the problem is inbreeding forever. But again, most importantly, you don't have to suffer with this, the tools to end your misery are at your disposal. Many people aren't anywhere near so lucky, don't spit in the face of opportunity.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking