USB 3.0 The New Connectors

[Eclecticos]

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/1588/usb30xu1.jpg

Although still in the prototype stage, USB 3.0 is aiming for 10 times the bandwidth of current USB2.0 solutions, or approximately 5Gbps. Since this requires fiber optic cabling, USB 3.0 will add a length of optical data cable to the mix, though USB 3.0 will retain full compatibility with USB 2.0 and, USB 1.0 as well.

Final version specifications to be finished by the first half of 2008,
with USB 3.0 peripherals realistically appearing in 2009 or 2010.

[Xpirate]

Oh boy, we all get to buy new cables. I guess it is the price you pay for higher speed USB.

[Luke122]

5gbps would make for some nice external storage solutions. :D

[crenn]

They should have made it 6gbps :P

[Collinstheclown]

Read about this a few months ago. It's going to be faster then SATA, so goodbye internal drives.




-CollinstheClown

[crenn]

Doesn't anyone know about SATAIII?!

[mtekk]

Read about this a few months ago. It's going to be faster then SATA, so goodbye internal drives.

I doubt it, remember that is theoretical max speed. You can't get SMART data over USB (at least it doesn't do it natively like IDE or SATA). Besides, no traditional hard drive can max out SATA (read/write to disk, not cache), it won't matter until either hybrid hard drives come out, or SSDs get a lot cheaper and speed up a tad.


Doesn't anyone know about SATAIII?!

It's SATA 6.0Gb/s ;), and it's just around the bend.

[Quakken]

But for now, usb will no longer be the weak point in external data transfer.

[J-Roc]

i thought firewire was supposed to be the next best thing above usb2.0. What happened with that?

[nevermind1534]

I think it still is, and will be until USB 3.0.. I 'm not currently aware of a firewire 2.0. It's kind of weird that it's the only thing that's never really been upgraded, other than the legacy ports.

[Tavarin]

They should have made it 6gbps :P

It is now 6Gbps. Intel demoed it at IDF and that was the new speed. Still not fast enough to last more than a year though and then it will once again become the bottleneck of data transfer.

[crenn]

Wrong, it's 4.8gbps.

[FuzzyPlushroom]

I think it still is, and will be until USB 3.0.. I 'm not currently aware of a firewire 2.0. It's kind of weird that it's the only thing that's never really been upgraded, other than the legacy ports.

The original FireWire was "FireWire 400" (400 Mbps), while "FireWire 800" (take one guess) was introduced two years later, in 2002.

Wiki says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394_interface) there's gonna be a faster variant to compete with USB 3.0, too...

[nevermind1534]

The original FireWire was "FireWire 400" (400 Mbps), while "FireWire 800" (take one guess) was introduced two years later, in 2002.

Wiki says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394_interface) there's gonna be a faster variant to compete with USB 3.0, too...

I never knew that.
Besides the short term shoring up of S3200 over the beta connector already discussed, future iterations of FireWire should bring a bump in speed to 6.4 Gbit/s, use of single-mode fiber, and additional connectors such as the small multimedia interface.[17]

Ok, so it will be 6.4Gb/s, and also use fiber.

[TheGreatSatan]

Clearance 2.0 cables!!

[progbuddy]

All this bandwidth is silly if you don't have the hardware to push it past that bandwidth. SATA II harddrives are capable of pushing around 150 MB/sec, although they are on a 3 gigabit wire (around 375 Mbyte/sec). Solid state disks are slow right now because they are meant to last longer (less heat output from a slower SSD makes it last a lot longer). A mouse doesn't really need to have 5 Gbit/sec bandwidth to operate efficiently. Maybe way further down the road (HVD players, for instance) we'll get something that can utilize it to the fullest extent.
-Kevin

[crenn]

Trust me, SATAIII bandwidth can be used easily if you have port multipliers.