Video at link
Posted on 01/12/2010 8:02:47 AM PST by ShadowAce
You’ll be hearing a lot about USB 3.0 this year. And well you should, because its potential is vast. But will system vendors step up to the plate to deliver all of USB 3’s goodness?
Speeds und feeds
USB 2.0 has never delivered the advertised 480 mbits/sec because that number technically correct and operationally bogus. If you have data transferring in both directions at the same time it could happen - but for USB disks it never does.
That drops the theoretical transfer rate to 240 mbits/sec, but because of protocol overhead - for example, some signal redundancy to increase data integrity - the payload bandwidth is still lower.
Net net: you’re lucky to get a 20 MB/sec data rate off a disk - when the advertised rate suggests 60. But unless you use FireWire or eSATA that is the best you can get - until now.
Enter the 3
USB 3.0 is a different protocol - USB is a brand, not a technology - and while I haven’t done a deep dive it is a big improvement, while retaining backward compatibility with USB 1 & 2.
The biggest improvement is performance: it can move over 440 MBytes/sec.
The fine print
As noted in the video your mileage will vary. We’re dependent on the system vendors and their driver writers to develop robust support. That could take years.
Mac users face a bigger problem: it appears that Cupertino is doing nothing - zip, nada - with USB 3.0. With their smaller market share and tighter control, little is likely to happen unless Apple actively supports it.
The StorageMojo take
USB 3.0 is a Good Thing. Drives, even flash drives, are getting large enough USB 2 is like sipping the ocean through a straw. The rapid growth of file-based workflows needs more bandwidth - and USB 3.0 looks like a good answer.
Apple is risking their creative professional base if they ignore a fast new I/O bus. Light Peak, an optical interconnect Intel has been working on at Apple’s behest, may be their answer.
But as I noted in Light Peak: black hole
Light Peak is a great idea and doomed. Between obnoxious DRM, costly optical hubs and switches, Blu-ray style licensing fees, Intel over-engineering and Apple’s penchant for twee little I/O ports, Light Peak is almost certain to fail.
With Windows 7 momentum and a major I/O fail, Microsoft may be able to take back much of the creative professional market that gives Apple such a hip image.
Let the games begin!
Video at link
Deep Dive, the latest rhetoric in the project manager's and marketing scum's vocabulary that as usual, means nothing.
I just bought a OCZ Vertex SSD and Win 7 64-bit.
Very fast.
Nothing against the poster, but that article is awful. It brings forth no details and rambles. Drunk blogging is dangerous...
Pardon my stupidity on all things geeky. All I know is when somebody says we can download faster.....I want it.
How about getting back to us once you have.
(not *you,* SA)
It’ll require new hardware—either a new computer, or a new PCI card with the ports.
“Deep Dive, the latest rhetoric in the project manager’s and marketing scum’s vocabulary that as usual, means nothing”
I guess it’s intended to be the opposite of “the 40,000 foot view”. :)
I think I’ll wait for USB 4 or 5
Mac do have the ability to accept third party expansion cards, don't they? Or do they?
Value add
Low-hanging fruit, and
Skillset
I will have to wait for USB 3.0 as I have just put money into USB 2.0 hard drives, laptops, thumb drives, etc.
Paradigm shift...
It appears cloud computing is making a come back. I don’t know if they’ll ever get over users worries about a third party having their data.
"I'd like to buy a verb, Alex."
Not with this user they won't. There's even a legal aspect to it. Courts have ruled that information shared with a vendor isn't subject to fourth amendment protection because the originator already elected to share it, and has thus waived fourth amendment. Kind of like they can go through your trash can, because by throwing the stuff out, you implicitly renounced claim to it.
Tell me about it. The last week or two it seems like page requests from FR take like 5-10 seconds. And it's not my PC or internet, because other sites load normally.
It’s a very scary road. How much is some companies client list go to go for? I firmly believe these backup companies will eventually start to mine the data. Things as simple as an email or phone list is worth big bucks and if they’ve already got a 4th amendment ruling, it will happen.
Funny, I was able to discern his meaning in the context he used it.
But, agreed. It is stupid techno-babble. He could have easily used the tried and true "20,000 foot overview" to show us how hip he thinks he is.
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