First USB 3.0 product gets certified, floodgates get closer to breaking

Engadget ^ | September 21st, 2009 | Darren Murph

[SunkenCiv]

After waiting around for what feels like ages, USB 3.0 can now say it has its first certified product in NEC's xHCI host controller. We know this may not be the most exciting first product to get the all-important seal of approval, but you've got to start somewhere... a number of manufacturers would likely try to get USB 3.0-equipped wares onto store shelves before that magical day in December... a Buffalo external hard drive, an ExpressCard-to-USB 3.0 adapter and even a full-on laptop with a functioning USB 3.0 port... USB 3.0 wares will be able to connect via older USB 2.0 sockets, though again at a slower rate... USB 3.0 cables will be physically different inside. In other words, a USB 2.0 cable cannot carry data at USB 3.0 speeds, end of story. To enjoy USB 3.0, you'll need a USB 3.0 receptor port, a USB 3.0 cable and a USB 3.0 product; if you swap any of those pieces with USB 2.0, everything slows to USB 2.0 rates.

[SunkenCiv]

[freedumb2003]

Always nice to see a technology that obsoletes my entire array of peripherals.

[SunkenCiv]

There was also a brand new story or 29 about the Buffalo drive.

• USB 3.0 in Pipeline: Where's FireWire?
• Battle of the next-gen: FireWire S3200 versus USB 3
• The 10 Most Important Technology Developments of 2008
• USB 3.0 will crush eSATA, FireWire ( Alex tells us why )
• Light Peak Technology ( Intel says Light Peak to Connect Consumer Devices at Record Speed )

[SunkenCiv]

I feel like Fred Flintstone when I look at the latest and greatest (or even not-so-great-est) at the stores and online. :’)

[freedumb2003]

Tell me about it...

[The Great RJ]

Perhaps firewire, despite advantages, will will end up on the losing end just like the Beta video format did to VHS. Not enough computers offered a firewire port while USB became ubiquitous.

[TSgt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus#USB_3.0
A new major feature is the SuperSpeed bus, which provides a fourth transfer mode at 4.8 Gbit/s. The raw throughput is 4 Gbit/s, and the specification considers it reasonable to achieve 3.2 Gbit/s or more after protocol overhead.

Got Bandwidth?

This may also do in SATA.

[SunkenCiv]

Firewire got neglected (no keyboards, mice, flash drives, and very few printers); the move from FW to FW800 required a different connector (USB doesn’t); Apple dropped FW here and there on its products, and Apple was the biggest adopter of it I think (TI invented it though). FW 3200 will probably smoke USB 3.0 (because USB’s realtime performance has generally failed to reach its claimed specs), but without some kind of killer implementation / product for FW 3200, it’ll all fade away like a bad fart.

[SunkenCiv]

SATA (eSata) helped do in FW; USB 3.0 if broadly accepted (no reason it won’t comes to mind) will rule.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, it’s like when the ribs come and the car tips over. ;’)

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Well, the “U” in “USB” suggests that that was the goal all along :)

[Recon Dad]

I thought it was against the FR rules to write in a foreign language. After reading every post so far I don't have a clue what the hell was said in one of them. I know what a USB port is, but beyond that it's Greek.

[Dallas59]

But will it work on Vista???

[BobbyT]

There’s really a Firewire 3200 on the way?

I figured after 800 they just gave up. Why throw all those resources at developing something for an ever-shrinking market (even Apple’s support USB)?

This just means another generation of Firewire and Firewire/USB combo external drives instead of having the full economies of scale of a universal connection.

[Gadsden1st]

I am just so busy I can hardly wait for my computer to operate faster. This will add at lease 45 seconds of free time to my day.

[JoeProBono]

[Dr. Sivana]

This just means another generation of Firewire and Firewire/USB combo external drives instead of having the full economies of scale of a universal connection.

Firewire will continue to have a place. First, it has a large established base in the professional video world, where devices are used for more than three years before retirement. Second, USB 2.0, and of curse 3.0 have good throughput, an important rating, but it has been my experience that Firewire is vastly superior in other aspects of real world usage. Latency is vastly superior, its initial responsiveness is much better (important for databases). I used both USB and Firewire drives to backup a Mac graphics department, and the Firewire 400 drives performed better than the USB 2.0 drives. More important still, I have found that USB ports and external drive controllerss have a really nasty tendency to burn out on long sustained data transfers, and are more likely to corrupt the hard drive in so doing.

Professionals will continue to use and pay for Firewire support in high end equipment for some time. Those downscale don't need to even know about it. All of those unused serial ports on all those computers made since USB modems and broadband connections haven't hurt anybody. The mere existence of USB doesn't either. Firewire largely takes the spot SCSI used to have.

[ShadowAce]

[TomGuy]

I know what a USB port is, but beyond that it's Greek.

"I know what a USB port is, but beyond that it's Greek geek."

It means, in the words of Tim the Tool Man Taylor, "uhh! more power! uhh uhh! more speed."

[I frequently get 20MB per second when transferring big files to my 1 TB Western Digital external USB (2.0) drive. That means that typical TV program digital file of around 360MB takes about 18 seconds to transfer.]

[Yossarian]

USB certainly is more widespread. And USB makes tons more sense for low-bandwidth things like mice.

However, where Firewire is used, Firewire is in hard-core use. Professional video cameras, portable hard-drives catering to professional users, professional audio interfaces, etc. In other words, places where USB 2.0's real-world half-speed bandwidth (even compared to just FW400) and tying up of the computer CPU cycles causes real issues.

I'd like to see how USB3 compares to FIrewire 800 - I'm no bigot. And of course, Apple & Intel (supposedly) have "Light Peak" cabling in the works...