Unveiled on Monday by the USB Implementers Forum, the USB 3.0 spec can theoretically support data-transfer speeds of up to 4.8Gbps - 10 times the speed provided by USB 2.0. The new standard, also known as SuperSpeed USB, is also expected to be more power-efficient than its predecessor. "SuperSpeed USB is the next advancement in ubiquitous technology," Jeff Ravencraft, the president of the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the industry group that promotes USB technology, said in a statement on Monday. "Today's consumers are using rich media and large digital files that need to be easily and quickly transferred from PCs to devices and vice versa. SuperSpeed USB meets the needs of everyone, from the tech-savvy executive to the average home user."
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Member since:2005-11-21
No one is confusing Bits for Bytes. We're pragmatic in pointing out the lie that is "Theoretical" vs. "Actual" throughput.
I'm looking forward to seeing the sustained [non-burstable] throughput of USB 3.0 versus Firewire 3200. I know FW's peer-to-peer model is superior to the master-slave and I'm not expecting USB 3.0 to surpass FW3200.
That however doesn't change the fact that USB is the standard due to INTEL owning and controlling this particular market with their USB standard.
Member since:2006-01-26
Realistically though, with overhead of the protocol (control bits, etc.) a serial bus throughput usually boils down to a fraction of 10 anyhow.
Thus, 480Mbps (the actual alleged throughput of USB2, not 400 as was indicated) usually ends up with ~48MB/sec maximum... I'm not sure I've ever seen it hit this amount anyway
Member since:2006-01-10
I was thinking that too, it isn't 400Mbps, it's 480Mbps.
Back when USB 2.0 was coming out, I had a discussion (really more like an argument telling a person how stupid he is) about USB 2.0 and Ultra SCSI 160.
I believe his exact words when I told him I was building a system with Ultra SCSI 160 drives, "you're jumping on the bandwagon a little late, USB 2.0 is going to crush SCSI." Yeah, and when did that happen?
He failed to understand that 480Mbps is not the same as 480MBps, and that 160MBps throughput of the Ultra160s would crush USB2.0
Member since:
2006-03-30
Hold the train for a second. I think we're getting seriously confused on terminology. Whether or not the B is capitalized makes a factor of 8 difference! bps is bits per second. Bps is Bytes per second. There are 8 bits to a Byte. USB 2.0 supports a theoretical 400 Mbps, therefore a theoretical 50 MBps. So, if you're seeing 12 MBps this is on the order of 25% of the theoretical maximum, and makes good sense.
USB 3.0, if we are to believe the titlepage is correct, will support 4.8Gbps, so in other words, somewhere around 600MBps range.
Please note, this is further confused by the fact that 1 GB != 1000 MB, but rather 1024 MB, so please realize all these numbers are approximate. To be honest, I'm not sure if the manufacturers report using 1000 bits/Kbit to make things look faster, the same way hardrive manufacturers do to make drives look bigger.
edit: typos!
Edited 2008-11-17 21:17 UTC