Intel's Jeff Ravencraft, who is also president of the USB Implementers Forum, discussed more details about USB 3.0 today at the Storage Visions conference in Las Vegas.
The focus of the new spec is three-fold: Retain backward compatibility, increase speed, and provide better power handling.
"USB has been the most successful interface in history of personal computing," Ravencraft noted. "Over 6 billion products are in the market, and over 2 billion ship a year now."
Compatability
Backward compatibility shows up in the new standard. USB 3.0 maintains the extensive device class driver infrastructure of USB 2.0, and a USB 2.0 devices will work via a 3.0 connector.
Performance
Performance improvements are notable, too. "We have research that shows that after 1 minute, 1.5 minutes waiting for a transaction, users get impatient.," says Ravencraft. "The transfer times have to get much faster." Hence the evolution of USB SuperSpeed's Sync & Go concept.
SuperSpeed USB 3.0's 5Gbps data rate (compared with Hi-Speed USB 2.0's 480Mbps) should help--and with very clear real-world advantages. For example: A 25GB HD movie will take 13.9 min to transfer with USB 2.0, and 70 seconds with USB 3.0, says Ravencraft.
Practically speaking, the implications are tremendous. Imagine not having to wait hours on end for your full-drive data backup to complete, or not having a lengthy delay when off-loading 32GB flash memory cards from your digital camera.
Power
As for power consumption, "power today is king for portable devices. It is the pinnacle, the focus for the PC, the notebook, and all devices. All of these new specs had to be optimized for power efficiency," says Ravencraft.
For example, there's no longer any device polling, so connected USB devices can enter a virtual sleep mode; more power will be able to go to the device (which will hopefully eliminate some of the power issues we see today with portable hard drives that require extra power from a second USB port); and USB 3.0 will no longer broadcast information to all connected devices, thereby saving power, too. Plus, when a device's battery is drained, it will now still be recognized by a laptop, for example, so you can charge it (this doesn't work with USB 2.0).
The intention is for SuperSpeed USB 3.0 to provide headroom for the next five years.
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6 comments:
Wow, nice... antayin ko na lang to sa CDR-King bro mas mura nyehehe :)
me too sis, most of my replacements galing sa CDR-King, from mmc readers, cables, usbs, mouse..etc. mura kasi, he he.
Is there WiFi USB 3.0 already? I need one atthe moment... my 2.0 just had it...
Is there WiFI USB 3.0 already? I need one...my 2.0 just had it!
@linsay..yup, there WiFi in usb 3.0
although they claimed backward compatibility with usb 2.0, i think that in order to maximize your 3.0 experience, you have to use Superspeed devices and ports.
All we have at this time are tidbits of details, so you have to make do with your 2.0...sorry.
Not interested in the CDR-King version?
That's pretty cool! I agree, mas mura nga sa CDR-King.. NakaSave tuloy ako.. lol
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