USB 3.0

[lopri]

.. is finally upon us! By the end of year or early next year, we'll see a slew of new chipsets/motherboards and new devices that will take advantage of this new standard. As some of you may know, USB 3.0 raises the theoretical bandwidth to 5.0Gbps (that's 10 times faster than current 2.0 standard) and is backward compatible.

NEC Introduces First USB 3.0 Host Controller

Samples of the µPD720200 host controller are scheduled to be available in June 2009 at US$15 each, and will include free Windows device driver software. Monthly production is expected to reach approximately 1 million units during September 2009. NEC claims its USB experience will help its production ramp, as they've shipped 161 million USB devices as of March 2009.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Good thing we have PCI-E for an expansion slot.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

nice!

 

[jandlecack]

Hardly any use in this other than flash drives and external HDDs instead of eSATA.

Colour me uninterested.

 

[VirtualLarry]

With this new standard, more storage devices are going to become USB3.0. (Flash drives, external HDs, and such).

And yet still, Windows cannot be installed onto a USB device. Can't you see what's broken here? The market wants it, but Microsoft will not provide.

 

[lopri]

I thought there was a work-around to install Windows on USB. But yes, M$ won't likely let that happen at users' whim. As for USB3.0, we can potentially expect:

- Backup time reduced to 1/10. Talk about easy backup
- Or better yet, instant sync'ing between internal volumes and external ones. (death of RAID1 and eSATA?)
- External SSDs as fast as internal ones. Presumably next gen SATA will have 6.0 Gbps of bandwidth, and USB 3.0 will have no issue handling it, too.
- Home networking via USB (or even wireless USB)

Above examples are just a few possibilities which might or might not happen. But it's hard to deny the potential benefit USB 3.0 can bring. To put it in a perspective, its theoretical max bandwidth (5.0Gbps) is 5 times that of current Gigabit network and is equal to PCIe 2.0 x1 bandwidth. So basically it's like having an external PCIe x1 lane, bandwidth-wise. Unlike eSATA, it will carry power as well as data so I'm pretty certain eSATA will become less popular. While it has a drawback compared to gigabit network (notably, drivers requirement), if that can be taken care of it won't be too difficult to set up a small network using USB 3.0.

 

[Sheninat0r]

Don't most USB 2.0 devices fall startlingly short of the 480Mbps theoretical maximum speed? I could see some improvements moving to USB 3.0, but I predict that they too will rarely if ever reach 5.0Gbps.

 

[vailr]

Originally posted by: lopri
I thought there was a work-around to install Windows on USB.

This custom XP install disk worked for me:
Text

 

[jcniest5]

Nobody even utilizes the full speed on USB 2.0 so not sure why all the hype.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

wireless USB?

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

Originally posted by: jcniest5
Nobody even utilizes the full speed on USB 2.0 so not sure why all the hype.

hard drives

 

[BarrySotero]

The next Vista service pack will be ready for recording in Blu-ray. All the high def stuff is ready to come around and either USB 3.0 or eSATA is needed for boost of transfers. Firewire of course is going away.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
wireless USB?

It's already out there, but current implement can only be considered crap.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
With this new standard, more storage devices are going to become USB3.0. (Flash drives, external HDs, and such).

And yet still, Windows cannot be installed onto a USB device. Can't you see what's broken here? The market wants it, but Microsoft will not provide.

Microsoft does have a version of XP/Vista that can be installed on a removable USB drive; but it's only available to developers.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Sheninat0r
Don't most USB 2.0 devices fall startlingly short of the 480Mbps theoretical maximum speed? I could see some improvements moving to USB 3.0, but I predict that they too will rarely if ever reach 5.0Gbps.

Most USB controllers and Hubs are Single TT, and have to share the 480Mbps of bandwidth across all USB ports on the controller. There are very few multi TT solutions out there (the belkin TetraHub is one).