USB 3.0! 4.8gig/second. Only for windows

[Bertuzzied]

Holy crap that is 10 times faster than USB 2.0.

http://news.techworld.com/storage/32...30-hard-drive/


Buyers will be interested to hear that the new external Hard Drive XS 3.0 doesn't cost the earth at £99 (approx $160) for a 1TB drive, even though that excludes the £22.99 for a desktop PCI-bus controller necessary to make it work at its intended throughput. Laptop users can pair it with a £25.99 plug-in PC Card to achieve the same effect.
The company is also supplying drivers to make USB 3.0 work with Vista and XP. Windows 7 should have 'native' drivers from not long after launch, or users will hope so. Apple is not yet supported by the XS 3.0.
As upgrades to 3.5 inch external drives go, this one looks like a good deal. USB 3.0 boosts the theoretical data throughput of USB storage devices to 4.8Gbit/s from USB 2.0's now rather tardy-sounding 480Mbit/s. Even taking in account protocol overhead, that should still dramatically reduce data transfer times at a moment when larger files sizes are starting to become commonplace.
"We now can transfer a 5GB movie in just 38 seconds - it's unbelievably fast," said Freecom's managing director, Axel Lucassen. Assuming that USB 3.0 scales proportionately, USB 2.0 would have transferred the same file in six and a half minutes.

[Flash Walken]

Sweeeeeet.

[Cliche]

There's apparently a newer cable as well that will trip up folks. Most likely for those who will eventually have to deal, the old a type connectors will get longer, and most likely the number of broken USB sockets will rise from people trying to shove the cable heads in too far for what they have. Small price to pay for higher speed.

[Traditional_Ale]

*drool...*

[You Need a Thneed]

Nice and fast.

But 4 GigaBits per second =/= 4 Gigabytes per second, which might make the title of this thread slightly misleading.

[LeftWing]

At that speed it has the capability to copy/transfer a standard DVD in under 5 seconds - that definitely works for me.

[temple5]

Suck it Mac

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by LeftWing

At that speed it has the capability to copy/transfer a standard DVD in under 5 seconds - that definitely works for me.

Yeah right...in that case, it's going to obsolete SATA3.

The USB 3.0 people are saying you can get about 3.2 gigabits theoretical bandwidth after protocol overhead - that makes it competitive, maybe slightly better, than Firewire-800.

And the CPU overhead during those USB 3.0 transfers is going to be awful in comparison to Firewire, because this is one of the areas that they did not spend a lot of time working on in the USB 3.0 specification.

It's not going to live up to the hype. It will dominate the market, though, and be everywhere in no time, just like cockroaches.

[Rathji]

I assume that like USB 2.0, this is maximum burst speed. I wonder what the sustainable throughput is.

I won't be bothered with it until I buy a computer with it already installed.

[HotHotHeat]

DUDE! You can load viruses onto a Flash drive so fast now!

It's not 'only for windows', it's coming out on Windows first.

[Hack&Lube]

That's the difference in size. I'll wait until this is supported on motherboards.

The CPU overhead is a problem. I wonder if this will be crap and never used like Firewire was for most.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

That's the difference in size. I'll wait until this is supported on motherboards.

The CPU overhead is a problem. I wonder if this will be crap and never used like Firewire was for most.

considering it's a complete interface change, i doubt it'll catch on. most peripherals wouldn't get any benefit out of the increased speed and likely won't change, so basically motherboard manufacturers would need to create new slots just for flash drives and external HD's. i'll be a niche thing like Firewire is

[LeftWing]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Yeah right...in that case, it's going to obsolete SATA3.

The USB 3.0 people are saying you can get about 3.2 gigabits theoretical bandwidth after protocol overhead - that makes it competitive, maybe slightly better, than Firewire-800.

Well, I've heard 6.0, 5.0, 4.8, and now 3.2 from you. I'm not sure who's right and what is sustainable - my comment was based on the information provided by the OP.

[yads]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

considering it's a complete interface change, i doubt it'll catch on. most peripherals wouldn't get any benefit out of the increased speed and likely won't change, so basically motherboard manufacturers would need to create new slots just for flash drives and external HD's. i'll be a niche thing like Firewire is

Most motherboards come with firewire slots right now.

[Barnes]

The new version of Firewire (3200) is pretty close to USB 3 in speed but still maintains all the benefits like almost no CPU usage, higher power capacity over the cable, daisychaining etc... I think it will still remain a pro solution however.

Apple was very keen on USB 1 and made it the standard before anyone else with the original Bondi Blue iMac.

Intel and Apple have a very, very close relationship nowadays and there is a new iMac coming out in the next few weeks....

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by LeftWing

Well, I've heard 6.0, 5.0, 4.8, and now 3.2 from you. I'm not sure who's right and what is sustainable - my comment was based on the information provided by the OP.

3.2 gigabits throughput comes from the USB 3.0 official specification, and takes into account the USB protocol overhead.

Let's face it, with any low-level protocol, you take the rated max throughput, and half it, and that's about what you will get after protocol and OS/filesystem overhead.

So it's gonna be quick, but its not game changing the way USB 1.0 and 2.0 were.