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USB 3.0 Getting a Speed Boost To 10 Gbps

cylonlover writes "The USB 3.0 Promoter Group has used CES 2013 to announce an enhancement to the USB 3.0 (aka SuperSpeed USB) standard that will see the throughput performance of USB 3.0 double from 5 Gbps to 10 Gbps. The speed boost will come courtesy of enhanced USB connectors and cables that are fully backward compatible with existing USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices. The 10 Gbps SuperSpeed USB update (pdf) is up for industry review during the first quarter of 2013, with completion of the standard expected by the middle of the year."

20 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. My Porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can transfer my porn to thumb drive in only a couple of hours now!!!!

    1. Re:My Porn by eviljolly · · Score: 3, Funny

      Don't be ridiculous. You can't fit it all on a thumb drive.

  2. Standards by MachineShedFred · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So what's the point of having a version number on your standard, if you don't increment the number when you change the standard?

    Customer: "This computer has USB 3, but my 10Gbps device only connects at 5Gbps!"
    Support Tech: "Oh, that's because you have USB SuperSpeed 3.0 Revision 1 rather than USB SuperSpeed 3.0 Revision 2."

    Maybe call it USB SuperSpeed 3.1?

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    1. Re:Standards by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So USB could replace SATA. Well if they get the overhead down.
      I would really like to see a SATA IV spec that is a little faster but includes power on the connector. It makes little sense to me to have separate connectors for power and data on SATA since you can not have an unpowered SATA device.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    2. Re:Standards by Pieroxy · · Score: 5, Informative

      It is a trademark of USB. Not one USB standard has had a single speed nor has it had its speed easily recognizable from the marketing garbage spilled by the consortium. And I'm not even talking about the mess of mixing USB1 & 2 devices and hubs. USB Full Speed, Hi Speed, Low Speed... and now SuperSpeed.

      To illustrate, here is an excerpt of the Wikipedia page:

      High-speed USB 2.0 hubs contain devices called transaction translators that convert between high-speed USB 2.0 buses and full and low speed buses. When a high-speed USB 2.0 hub is plugged into a high-speed USB host or hub, it will operate in high-speed mode. The USB hub will then either use one transaction translator per hub to create a full/low-speed bus that is routed to all full and low speed devices on the hub, or will use one transaction translator per port to create an isolated full/low-speed bus per port on the hub.

      Garbage.

      They obviously HAD to do the same for USB3, for old times' sake. We will laugh about it to our grandchildren next to the fireplace. But that'll be later.

    3. Re:Standards by LordLimecat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      USB will never replace SATA:
        * It hits the CPU for each transfer
        * the overhead is higher
        * The latency is way higher, as it needs to set up and tear down connections for each transfer
        * It doesnt support ATA commands (TRIM, for one)

    4. Re:Standards by craigminah · · Score: 3, Funny

      No kidding. I bought a college textbook, it was "5th edition" and just released prior to my semester starting. After the semester I tried to sell it only to be told by the college bookstore that it had been replaced. I looked and the book that replaced it was "5th edition" then the bookstore clerk said it was "5th edition, 2nd revision". My response probably made me sound like a cross between Joe Pesci and Yosemite Sam. Stupid book publishers...

      They should at least change it to USB 3.1 or something, like what they did with HDMI versioning.

    5. Re:Standards by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Informative

      I would really like to see a SATA IV spec that is a little faster but includes power on the connector.

      Isn't that what eSATAp is for?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    6. Re:Standards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe call it USB SuperSpeed 3.1?

      It will never take off then. Everyone will wait for USB 3.11 For Workgroups.
       

    7. Re:Standards by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That seems to me what SATA should have been.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    8. Re:Standards by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You cannot get the overhead down without making USB into a storage-specific protocol...
      at which point you've just re-made eSATA.

      Why not just use the storage specific protocol we already have?

    9. Re:Standards by sjames · · Score: 3, Informative

      You're close. It's not a 'connection' so much as it is a token allowing the target device to talk. It can't just be left with one target in case another target might need service.

      So being non p-t-p is highly relevant as you guessed.

    10. Re:Standards by Cid+Highwind · · Score: 3, Funny

      *never quite understood that - it's not *that* much harder than the blocks-and-holes puzzles they solved as a toddler.

      Users have experienced the USB disorientability principle (try to plug in USB cable, doesn't fit, rotate connector 180 degrees, still doesn't fit, rotate connector again, plugs right in) enough times that they're concluded computer cables exist in some inscrutable 5-dimensional space and given up trying to understand what plugs in where and why.

      --
      0 1 - just my two bits
  3. can we call it by alta · · Score: 3, Insightful

    SuperDuperSpeed USB?

    --
    Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
  4. CPU utilization, pc to pc, and Power not speed by silas_moeckel · · Score: 4, Informative

    USB3 is fairly fast as it is. It uses far to much CPU time right now as in pegging a cpu while writing 150MBs while the internal sata's on the same machine writing to the same model drive is 20%. The enhanced power is not part of the base standard so there is a chicken and the egg issue with anything using it it needs to be baked in. The USB3 spec allows for pc to pc connects but again it's not a requirement to support it so no OS supports it.

    --
    No sir I dont like it.
  5. Re:Will this speed ever be used? by vlm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think its a matter of scale. So raw uncompressed video signal on an original displayport connector is 4.32 Gbit/s... now instead of a "USB" port being able to carry one uncompressed video signal it could carry two. Of course displayport 1.2 does 17.28 Gbit/s, so we've gone from only 1/4 to only 1/2 of a video signal. On the other hand, displayport has about twice the BW available as HDMI, so you could just about replace HDMI with USB now on a raw available BW basis. Although it would be a heck of a lot more intelligent to shove compressed video down the cable rather than raw uncompressed.

    Using USB for a uncompressed video connection is not a valid or useful data point, anyway. But it does make the point that this is competitive with the fastest port anyone is likely to ever have access to. Nothing in your average dude's computer will ever be able to saturate a USB thats faster or about as fast as the video cable. A more normal use case is I'm sure my typing speed was not limited by 5.0 Gigs USB so 10.0 Gigs USB is not going to help.

    In the very long run we will not have USB / Firewire / SATA / PATA / Displayport / HDMI we'll have just one connector and protocol to run them all. Plug your keyboard, mouse, LAN adapter and monitor into your hub connected to your phone and be done with it. The only question is which standard will win. Probably USB.

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  6. Thunderbolt killer by sjbe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So USB could replace SATA.

    More likely it will just keep Thunderbolt from ever really taking off. SATA is pretty common and there are enough technical headaches with using USB instead that it is probably going to stick around. (though eSATA might be a different story since it is far less commonly used) But if USB is fast enough there really is limited need for Thunderbolt. I already can run a monitor via USB 2.0 through a docking station I use daily and that works fine.

    I'm less interested in faster USB than I am in 100W USB. The ability to power a laptop or small PC with a single USB cable would be huge. Anything that reduces the number of different types of cables I have to deal with is a good thing.

  7. Re:Will this speed ever be used? by samkass · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In the very long run we will not have USB / Firewire / SATA / PATA / Displayport / HDMI we'll have just one connector and protocol to run them all. Plug your keyboard, mouse, LAN adapter and monitor into your hub connected to your phone and be done with it. The only question is which standard will win. Probably USB.

    That was the hope with Thunderbolt/LightPeak, which is on all Macs these days and works well. One cable carries two full-duplex 10Gb channels (10Gb each way simultaneously per channel). But "docks" have been slow in coming and expensive. And because the USB group refused to integrate the standard or allow them to use the connector, they switched to the DisplayPort interface which is nice and compact. Now we have a slower standard coming much later for which existing cables may or may not work but look the same as the current ones... fun.

    --
    E pluribus unum
  8. Re:Faster than my Ethernet - connection by Gaygirlie · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's because you're doing it wrong. Unless you're processing data from your basement super collider, there's no way you need faster than 1Gig.

    That's where YOU are wrong.

    Most likely you have your network setup improperly and are NOT getting 1gig per second.

    I actually do get 1Gbps speeds.

    Does your switch support Jumbo frames? Are they turned on? What are you transgering? What speed are your NICs? What speed is your buss? What speed are your hard drives.

    Yes. Yes. Files. 1Gbps. PCI-E x2. Irrelevant, they're in a RAID and can perfectly well saturate the network as-is.

    The most likely problem that would cause transferring of files from one computer to another over a network is the hard drives.

    That would be true if they weren't in a RAID.

    Their transfer rates are no where near 1gig per second.

    Cache reads/writes well exceed the 1Gbps, and I get around 400 megabytes/second read-speeds from the array which translates to 3.2Gbps -- well over the network limit.

    Your buss likely can't support that speed either.

    You might wanna read up on PCI-E.

    Last thing I'd check is your jumbo frames setting.

    Already said that it is on.

  9. Stupid plug design by Immerman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's not that, USB plugs actually have a half-integer spin so that a 360-degree rotation actually inverts their perspective on the universe rather than returning them to the original orientation.

    USB is actually a pretty unique case in user-facing plugs, and it rather pisses me off - what idiot thought that a perfect rectangle was a good shape for a connector? It's not like it was a surprise problem - almost every prior external plug was either a trapezoid whose orientation could to told with a glance or touch, or a round DIN which could often be partially inserted and then rotated until the "key" engaged (I rather liked those). Internal ribbon cables had already faced the problem for decades and come up with a progressive variety of solutions that most everyone agreed were sub-par and acceptable only because it was so rarely an issue. The keyed plug and collar had been settled on as the best solution for IDE and floppy cables long before USB was designed, and even that had the advantage over USB that you could often feel the respective orientations when working in situations where you couldn't see one or both of them. And it's not exactly like the solution was in any way difficult, just change the shape of the sheath. For crying out loud even the USB-B connectors designed as part of the same standard were uniquely orientable! /rant

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