USB 3.0 has been talked about for awhile now and everyone has been waiting to see if the promise of blazing transfer speeds can take on the king that is IEEE 1394 (otherwise known as Firewire) 800.

Well, the specs are in and USB engineers claim to have squeezed up to nearly 5 Gigs a second (about 600 MB realistically) in transfer speed. Not bad, that’s about twenty percent faster than Firewire 800 set a few years back.


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New I/O architectures are also emerging, and it's likely we'll see SuperSpeed USB 3.0, which can move data at speeds up to 4.8 gigabits per second, and next-generation SATA I/O, which pumps peak disk speeds to 6 gigabits per second—just in time for the next generation of solid-state drives.

In many systems now, I/O is a bigger bottleneck than the CPU, as anyone whose system has come to a crawl when copying data from a USB flash memory stick will attest. The platform designers need to work on those issues, and faster, multitasking I/O will help as much as faster CPU performance.


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USB 3.0 Ups Peripheral Bandwidth


USB 3.0 is backward-compatible with USB 2.0, making the connectors appear as if they were the same as the conventional connector type A. The USB 2.0 pins remain where they are, while the five new pins were placed deep inside the connector cover. This means that you have to fully insert a USB 3.0 cable into a USB 3.0 port in order to make sure you're running in USB 3.0 mode by making the additional connections. Otherwise, you’ll fallback to USB 2.0 speed. The USB-IF recommends that all manufacturers color-code the inside of the connector cover using color “Pantone 300C.”

This is similar for the type B USB connector, although the differences are more visible here. The almost-square connectors for USB 3.0 can clearly be identified through the five additional contacts.


Mobile Device Connectors


There will be a very noticeable change for mobile devices, though. While the old Micro-B USB 2.0 connector is 6.86 millimeters wide, the USB 3.0 Micro-B type for cell phones, smartphones or media players will be as wide as 12.25 millimeters. Again, the connectors were designed in a way to maintain USB 2.0 compatibility.

Finally, cable length is going to change. While five meters were allowed for USB 2.0 connections, USB 3.0 will only support a maximum length of three meters.



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What is USB 3.0 (aka. SuperSpeed USB )?

USB 3.0 is the next major revision of the ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus, created in 1996 by a consortium of companies led by Intel to dramatically simplify the connection between host computer and peripheral devices. Fast forwarding to 2009, USB 2.0 has been firmly entrenched as the de-facto interface standard in the PC world for years (with about 6 billion devices sold), and yet still the need for more speed by ever faster computing hardware and ever greater bandwidth demands again drive us to where a couple of hundred megabits per second is just not fast enough.


In a nutshell, USB 3.0 promises the following:

• Higher transfer rates (up to 4.8 Gbps)
  
• Increased maximum bus power and increased device current draw to better accommodate power-hungry devices
  
• New power management features
  
• Full-duplex data transfers and support for new transfer types
  
• New connectors and cables for higher speed data transfer...although they are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 devices and computers (more on this later)

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Do you think this will ever see the light of day? They've been teasing this for 3 years at least.

Asus Launching USB 3.0 PCI-E Card for $30




Although Intel isn't exactly eager to jump on board the USB 3.0 bandwagon just yet, that doesn't mean consumers can't get in on the SuperSpeed USB action. While Asus just unveiled the first motherboard to support USB 3.0, the company also snuck out a nifty expansion card
for PC enthusiasts who just don't feel like swapping out the motherboard.

According to Maximum PC, the expansion board worked on par with the USB 2.0 ports found on the P55 used in testing. However, because USB 3.0 is relatively new, the site didn't have any 3.0 devices handy; they didn't have a SATA 6 Gb/sec. drive for testing either. However, the site did say that Asus alleviated any possible bottlenecks by running the card in an x4 PCI-E mode.

The Asus U3S6 PCI-E card is expected to be available soon, and will retail for a measly $30.


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Western Digital My Book 3.0 Gains SuperSpeed USB Status


Following USB 3.0 drive launches from Buffalo, Dane-Elec, Freecom and LaCie, one would expect the big guys won't be far behind. Western Digital has debuted the aptly-named My Book 3.0, which the company touts as the fastest external drive ever!

The My Book 3.0 will come exclusively with, none other than, the uber-fast SuperSpeed USB interface. WD's own labs recorded a whopping 148MB/s when transferring a 24GB HD movie over USB 3.0 connection compared to 35MB/s with USB 2.0.



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USB 3.0 is promising to make storage devices up to 10 times faster.

Here Seagate's Jon Van Bronkhorst, executive director of product marketing, walks us through their new hard drives and shows off USB 3.0 and talks about what the real numbers are.

Futurelooks caught up with OCZ at CES 2010 to see what they had coming up for us this year. They were showing off their surprisingly upgradeable Z-Drive P88 PCI-Express SSD and their new SSD USB 3.0 drive. Both were throwing up some crazy benchmarks and we can't wait to get our hands on one or both of these new toys.

USB 3.0 FAQ:


After this years CES, it's clear that USB 3.0 is here to stay. Wtih a tidal wave of consumer devices looming on the horizon, we've decided to help clear up confusion about USB 2.0's successor. Here'sall the information you need to know about USB 3.0, organized into a brief FAQ.


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Related Articles

* USB 3.0: What's the Fuss?
* Everything You Need to Know About USB 3.0, Plus First Spliced Cable Photos
* How to Make the Move to USB 3.0

Super Talent Working on USB 3.0 Flash Drive for Under $70


Super Talent Technology introduced the world's first USB 3.0 flash drives a couple of months ago, and started shipping in small quantities just in time for the holiday shopping season. SuperSpeed USB 3.0 has a theoretical throughput of 4.8 Gbps, which translates to a raw transfer speed of 480 MB/s thanks to the 8b/10b encoding used. Actual performance is expected to peak around 400MB/s with protocol overhead, similar to how USB 2.0 peaks at around 40MB/s.

Super Talent is working on a new SuperSpeed USB 3.0 flash drive. The Express drive will achieve read speeds of 125MB/s and write speeds of 50MB/s. Downloading a 600MB movie will take only 12 seconds with this new drive. It will come in two models; a 16GB model will sell for under $70, while the 32GB model will sell for under $150.

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 is now a standard feature on many premium motherboards. ASUS sells a adapter card featuring two 6Gbps SATA ports and two USB 3.0 ports for under $30.



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USB 3.0 is finally getting mainstream. The motherboards are out there, the drives are out there. eSATA is soon to become a thing of the past.

Over the years USB has gone through several iterations, with the latest version, USB 3.0, promising even faster data transfer speeds, making it idea for today's bandwidth intensive devices and applications. But what exactly is USB 3.0 and how does it really differ from earlier versions?

USB 2.0 is too slow for transferring video and other files in a real time environment.

Today, with the newest USB 3.0 hard drives and other devices being introduced the transfer rate has been raised ten fold to a seemingly spacious 4.8Gb/second. Also known as SuperSpeed USB this improvement on the USB standard opens a host of performance increases for peripheral devices, primary among them making external USB hard drives as fast and useful as current internal SATA hard drives.


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too bad intel seems to have dropped developement of native USB 3.0 support in their own chipsets. even the next generation (expected in 2011) comes without USB 3.0 in current specs.

so everyone who want's it, has to rely on NEC's NEC µPD720200 bridge which is limping around due to the limited PCIe-2.0 speed in current 5x- chipsets.

what a bummer...

COMPUTEX Taipei 2010 - Last week we visited ASRock who gave us an exclusive look at some of its new technologies including the Vision 3D HTPC and AIWI, but one thing we didn't have time to check out when we went to their office was an interesting new feature that will be bundled for free in ASRock's new P55 Extreme3 motherboard package.

ASRock has developed a simple yet smart little device that allows users to easily add two USB 3.0 ports to the front of their case. The device is really just a small bracket that fits into a spare FDD-sized opening at the front of your case and then a cable from the bracket runs to one of the USB 3.0 pin connectors on supported ASRock motherboards.

Something simple, but it's a great idea especially if you don't like fiddling around at the back of your system and besides, who doesn't like free? Chris Lee from ASRock told us in the video above that its P55 Extreme3 mobo will go on sale in next week or two. Distributed by Tubemogul.

USB 3.0 On A Stick: Super Talent's RAIDDrive 64 GB


USB 3.0 is finally here. More and more motherboards incorporate an additional controller to support the fast interface. Storage vendors are releasing new USB 3.0 products almost weekly. We decided to look at the impact this new interface will have on thumb drives by comparing it with USB 2.0 and eSATA.

While USB 2.0 performance is sufficient for occasional use, it bottlenecks power users. We don't want to wait around moving multi-gigabyte archives at 35 MB/s or less. There are a number of different scenarios you could conceive where USB 2.0 is simply insufficient, but the simple truth is that performance is usually perceived as inadequate if the waiting extends beyond just a few minutes.

With 5 Gb/s gross throughput, USB 3.0 provides ten times the bandwidth of USB 2.0.




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USB 3.0 chip prices set to drop through the floor: NEC won't have monopoly any more


The price of USB 3.0 chips, which has militated against the fast adoption of the standard, is set to fall dramatically later this year.

Earlier this year, a number of vendors in Old Taipei hit out against chip giant Intel for delaying a USB 3.0 chipset until 2012. Gigabyte, Asus and Asrock have been shipping USB 3.0 compatible motherboards for some months now.


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USB 3.0 specification gets mobile support: Enhances power saving, adds dual role as host or peripheral


The USB 3.0 Promoter Group has announced the availability of an addition to the USB 3.0 specification, the On-the-Go 3.0 and Embedded Host supplement.

The supplementary specification enhances prior work on the On-the-Go 2.0 specification, with which it is backwards compatible, enabling superior power saving features for USB 3.0 so that mobile devices can adopt the as yet little used USB 3.0 ports.

The supplement provides details on how mobile devices like cameras, smartphones and tablets can use USB 3.0 as a host or peripheral through a single receptacle, opening up the possibility that the next wave of smartphones and tablets could come with USB 3.0 ports.
This also means that the devices will not require a PC in order to take advantage of the speed improvements of USB 3.0, but will actually be able to link up with one another directly instead.

"The USB 3.0 Promoter Group continues to optimize its specifications in order to meet the evolving requirements of the industry," said Brad Saunders, chairman of the USB 3.0 Promoter Group. "The availability of the USB On-the-Go 3.0 and Embedded Host supplement addresses the industry's need to transfer rich data using fast synch-n-go mobile devices."

The USB 3.0 Promoter Group is made up of HP, Intel, Microsoft, Renesas, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments. It developed the USB 3.0 specification in 2008 and works towards maintaining and enhancing it. The supplement will be managed by the USB Implementers Forum, which looks after the primary specification as well.

Of course, the problem for USB 3.0 remains its lack of support across the industry, both in the addition of ports in computers by PC makers and in peripherals that can run over USB 3.0. USB 3.0 promises speeds of up to 5Gbits/s, ten times faster than USB 2.0, but high prices have held it back. It will likely be another few years before it takes off properly.


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