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Home » Opinion

USB 3.0 Finally on the Way

Posted by Steve Laser on November 17, 2008 – 4:20 pm  Share
closeThis post was published 1 year 4 days ago.
It\'s is possible that the information within this article is now out of date or updated.

usbport

8 years ago the USB 2.0 specification was released.  It was a huge improvement over the USB 1.0 spec, speeding transfer of data by a factor of 40 times, enabling downloads of 60 MB per second.  USB 3.0 will bring a tenfold increase to that speed, or 600 MB per second.  What does this mean to you?  Look at the speed differences between the three specs:

Transfer of a 25GB HD movie:

  • USB 1.0: 9.3 hours
  • USB 2.0: 13.9 minutes
  • USB 3.0: 70 seconds

That’s a significant improvement.  Unfortunately you may not see USB 3.0 until 2010.  Microsoft is trying to work it into Windows 7, and is deciding whether to add support for it in Vista.

Read more about it at CNET

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  • CodeBubba
    LOL! No problem Steve!

    Wow ... 600MB/s through a USB pipe! Man ... that's frequency so high only a dog can hear it!

    -CB :D
  • I fixed the post to reflect seconds rather than minutes. Sheesh, you can't get away with anything here. You peeps are too sharp:)
  • I stand corrected again! It is per second, not minute. My bad. From the USB Wikipedia:

    The Full Speed rate of 12 Mbit/s (1.5 MB/s) is the basic USB data rate defined by USB 1.0. All USB hubs support Full Speed.
    A Low Speed rate of 1.5 Mbit/s (187.5 kB/s) is also defined by USB 1.0. It is very similar to full speed operation except that each bit takes 8 times as long to transmit. It is intended primarily to save cost in low-bandwidth Human Interface Devices (HID) such as keyboards, mice, and joysticks.
    A High-Speed (USB 2.0) rate of 480 Mbit/s (60 MB/s) was introduced in 2001. All high-speed devices are capable of falling back to full-speed operation if necessary.
    Experimental data rate:

    A Super-Speed (USB 3.0) rate of 4.8 Gbit/s (600 MB/s). The USB 3.0 specification was released by Intel and its partners in August 2008, according to early reports from CNET news. Products using the 3.0 specification are likely to arrive in 2009 or 2010.

    Thanks for catching my errors.
  • Good catch, Bubba. I didn't notice that error and I guess the commenters at CNET missed it as well. But the new standard is still fast. Just not quite as fast as was published.
  • doogald
    Well, of course the spec is actually just greater than 600 MB/second, not minute. Though that must be burst, as doing the math on 25 GB in 70 seconds gives you roughly 375 MB/second sustained throughput, if that is the correct data. And I did the arithmetic correctly . . .
  • CodeBubba
    >>
    USB 3.0 will bring a tenfold increase to that speed, or 600 MB per minute.

    Transfer of a 25GB HD movie:

    * USB 1.0: 9.3 hours
    * USB 2.0: 13.9 minutes
    * USB 3.0: 70 seconds
    <<

    How does 600MB per-minute transfer-rate translate into a 70-second transfer of 25GB?

    25GB / 600MB approximately 42 MINUTES, not 70-seconds.

    -CB ;-)
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