USB 3.0 coming soon… or maybe not that soon
Posted by: Marat on: September 23, 2007
As it stands today, USB 2.0 has a transfer rate of 480Mbps (mega-bits per second) which is exactly 60MBps (mega-bytes per second). From there we can go to Apple’s Firewire 800, which as you’ve guess it can transfer 800Mbps. And then finally, there’s eSata, a whopping 3Gbps (giga-bits per second).
So those are your choices when it comes to interfaces between your external hardware (like you hard drive, USB flash drive etc) and your computer. eSata has to be connected to a SATA port on your motherboard which limits them to mainly being used for hard drive, and Firewire costs around 25 cents more per port to make, so they’re hardly every used for anything except video cameras.
And as we all know, the problem with USB 2.0 is, it’s just not fast enough is it? Yes 480Mbps is good, it’s great actually but when running a hard drive off it you will get bottlenecking (in layman’s terms means data is spat out at a faster rate than the USB interface can send it, hence bottleneck).
Therefore most of the new external hard drive enclosures now have an eSata port. But then we hit another dead end, how many eSata ports have you seen in computers built these days? That’s right… yeah some of the latest ASUS motherboards come with one eSata port, but that’s about it. So this means, you’ll pretty much be stuck with the slower USB 2.0 port because let’s face it… no one has eSata ports.
So this is when Intel comes onto the field. And being Intel, they announce something spectacular, they announce USB 3.0.
Intel has announced that the new USB 3.0 will be built ground up, making the ports backward compatible with USB 2.0 and at the same time reaching an incredible 4.8Gbps speed. The new cables used for the newly named USB “SuperSpeed” will have optical laced links aswell as copper to provide both the speeds and the backward compatibility for the older devices.
NEC claims that cables used for USB 3.0 will have to be up to a maximum of 2 metres to achieve such high speeds. “Intel, HP, Microsoft, NEC, NXP, and TI will present the initial spec for a design review in November with first silicon to be stamped in early 2009.” ~ Engadget
So there you have it folks, Intel to the rescue. We’ll now just have to sit back and relax for the next oh 2 years or so 
till they actually release it.
Happy waiting.
Thanks,
Marat
4 Responses to "USB 3.0 coming soon… or maybe not that soon"
September 24, 2007 at 6:47
I agree, eSATA might be our best bet for higher speeds as of now, but the problem I see with it is as far as I know there’s no power that can travel via the SATA cable therefore restricting the users from using 2.5″ HDD without a need for a power cable.
Plus I wouldn’t be surprised if it took at least another year for laptop manufacturers to start introducing eSATA on every laptop.
Unfortunately I think we’ve reached the point where we have a new, faster interface but when compared to USB it has its drawbacks.
But hey look, we have at least another two years before USB 3.0 is even in “beta” and with technology doubling every 18 – 24 months I wouldn’t be surprised if Intel and the “gang” could achieve their promised speeds.
September 24, 2007 at 17:04
I did not contemplate the power issue, actually, which is a very good point – some hardware that is currently USB might do OK with separate power, but some things just wouldn’t work if you had to lug around a power brick as well.
As for your point re increasing technical capabilities, again, fair. However, I think you were just showing off WordPress’s tooltip thingy. Which I don’t know how to do, which puts you at an unfair advantage.
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September 23, 2007 at 18:44
So a 2009 release, which means it’ll be at least 2010 before it’s broadly adopted, at the most optimistic prediction. All the while we’re being told to “consume” (gotta love the word “consume” in this context) all sorts of “content”, which is increasingly large in size and thus requires more bandwidth to get to you in a reasonable amount of time. I think they really should have thought this through a little better…
That said, while no one has eSATA now, when we all upgrade to the new generation components that are here or are going to be here very soon (45 nm chips from Intel, DDR3, etc) we will find ourselves with motherboards that have eSATA capability. So that might end up being our best bet for 2008-2010 (taking into account time for adoption from 2009 release) while Intel and others do whatever it is they’re doing about USB 3.0. Which, by the way, I don’t think will come anywhere near meeting these expectations, because these things never do.