Hardware Why you should insist on USB 3

Greetings!

USB3 connections are compatible with previous USB connections.
It will become the standard.

 

Don't get me wrong either. I'll get USB3 as well at some point, I just didn't know USB3 was actually faster. I'dlike Light Peak to succeed with optical though...

 

I'd love to get USB3.

Unfortunately, my only x1 slot is covered by the graphics card. (SERIOUSLY, GIGABYTE?!?)

 

Exactly. It may not be as noticeable these days, but it's still there. I know that FireWire uses hardware controllers in each device as opposed to relying on the CPU, but I don't know if this is also the case with Thunderbolt.

This is why FireWire was for such a long time the dominant standard for pro-audio use; USB placed too much load on the system and introduced stutters, skips, artefacts, etc. It's not so much of a problem now, but there are still many, many people out there who swear by FireWire for pro-audio.

 

To guys who talk about eSATA - the trouble with eSATA is power. The data connector without correct support for powering the device is as useless as it gets. Most eSATA connectors are just data connectors, so you need to use external power brick or another USB cable just to power your eSATA device.

Sure, later they come up with eSATAp, which is just that - a USB connector in the eSATA connector, which is not even common enough to be a usable platform.

Unfortunately, this disqualifies eSATA for most use cases.

And why should you use USB3 instead of USB2 ? Because then you can reuse your old SSD and put it in your USB3 caddy and get awesome speeds :

 

The reason why USB 3.0 hasn't caught on can be summarized by the latter half of the first sentence on Page 2: It's not a native part of a chipset yet. If anybody pays attention to the computing industry outside of the enthusiast circle, no Tier 1 manufacturer in their right mind adopts a new I/O until it's native on-chip somewhere. Seeing as how there's no less than *seven* USB 3.0 controllers available, and considering there's no consistency between any of them (reference: http://vr-zone.com/articles/usb-3.0-speed-tests--7-way-host-controllers-roundup/13358.html), no wonder the big-box ODMs are waiting for Intel to bake it into a chipset. They're waiting for a known quantity.

BLC and Gareth: ThunderBolt, for the time being, requires a controller on both ends to work properly at this point, so, to this point, it doesn't operate much differently than FireWire, with the exception of what bus it attaches to (FW = PCI, ThunderBolt = PCI-E x4). FireWire never caught on as something that should be included on every chipset (I blame Apple), but ThunderBolt belongs to Intel, so I expect that to be on-chip (not sure if it will originate from the CPU or the chipset - I'm willing to bet the latter, though) sometime in the next few years.

FireWire was a stable connection for uncompressed video and audio (huge files) that USB 2.0 (which does better with smaller files due to it's inability to compensate for error overrun) couldn't handle with any level of consistency. If you've ever experienced trying to import HQ DV from a pro video camera over USB 2.0, you'd understand.

 

^That's the reason I have FireWire and USB connections coming from my tower to desk.


Just wish burning DVDs over FireWire worked, and didn't hang the burning process.

 

I have been using USB 3 since it was first launched, well just after and can say that it is awesome...highest write speed I've managed on the USB3 flash drive was 120MB/s for about 5 seconds and then it dropped to 90MB/s for the rest of the 4GB file...

 

You make some very good points. Wthout any doubt, USB3 will succeed, but the real question is will intel open up Light Peak (yes, I will call it by its proper name, not the apple rebrand) and allow everyone to implement it or will it be kept closed? As of now it's an intel exclusive item (damn near apple-exclusive), which I suspect is because intel is still ironing out the optical PHY's bugs or convicing ODMs to pick it up...

 

I doubt Usb 3.0 will take over the stage that fast. There are plenty of devices that still support 2.0 (so many new laptops still go with it). And with the Intel's claim to introduce Thunderbolt in 2013/2015, it might be the shortest lived standard out there.

 

Yes OK - so USB3 is better than USB2.

But how many people really NEED that improvement?

It doesn't change anyone's day.

 

You know you can plug a x1 card in any PCIe slot?

 

It was just codenamed Light Peak. The Thunderbolt name is trademarked and belongs fully to intel. (Okay was registered by apple and then transferred). It'll never be referred to as Light Peak as it's never been released under this name. Many products and technologies get rebranded like this.

Also, IMO, Light Peak is a terrible name for a technology that supports both electrical and optical connections. It's launched with electrical and optical cables will arrive later this year (and offer no benefit to the likes of you and I)

 

Any PCIe slot will take a 1x card. Stick it in a 16x slot further down the board and it'll work exactly the same.

 

I could care less about usb3. The only usb devices I use everyday are keyboard and mouse. I have usb audio device I use for timecode input from turntable, but I don't think it would make any difference as it seems to be almost as good as my pci-e soundcard input. Other than that I use flashdrive to install OS and thats it. I don't charge anything with usb ports, or use usb storage so i see little benefit. This is why it has not caught on. It's not really that necessary to many people.

 

That is likely the USB 3.0 micro-B connector. If you look carefully you will notice that half of the plug looks like a USB 2.0 micro-B plug. This is because it is. The other half is for the extra pins that USB 3.0 uses.

 

While my customers represent a very small part of the real mainstream PC user, I feel that USB 3 is not getting adopted nearly as fast as expected quite simply because nobody (except us, the minority) wants to buy a new PC or upgrade. The avg PC user is completely ignorant of add-in cards, even if they did know, what use would it be to them? Their P4 XP PC works just fine for surfing the web, why drop more cash on something they will most likely never use.

When XP support is finally dropped and people find the need to upgrade, then USB 3 adoption will blossom. Only because it will be standard, not because the consumer wants it.

 

I use since it come out, so no surprise here.