What is USB 3.0?
It is a new standard for data transmission by cable. It is backward compatible with USB 2.0 standard equipment,
What are the Advantages?
Speed. It is at least three times quicker than USB 2.0 in practical applications with a potential to be ten times quicker.
It cuts transferring a 2 hour movie (24 GB) from around 11 minutes to less than 3 minutes.
As a device controller. A USB 3.0 port can control up to 127 peripherals.
As a power supply: Unlike Firewire, USB 3.0 can supply devices with power- a lot more than USB 2.0. Also USB 3.0 controlled devices are automatically moved into idle, suspend, or sleep states extending battery life for laptops (and cameras, mobile phones etc when they become available)
How it works
USB 3.0 uses four more wires than USB 2.0 in the data cable giving a total of six wires. There is full duplex communication, allowing data to be sent and received simultaneously.
USB Speed Comparison
USB 2.0 High Speed 480 MB/s
UBS 3.0 SuperSpeed 5.0 GB/s
In comparison, the new Firewire 3200 (yet to be released), has a maximum potential speed of 3.2 GB/s and the old Firewire 800 is only 800MB/s.
As far as hard drives are concerned, eSata has a max speed of 3GB/s- again well short of the 5 GB/s that USB 3.0 offers.
Of course, all transfers can be limited by system architecture but it looks good for a USB 3.0 dominated future.
Where is it Most Useful?
Wherever there is a need to move a lot of data. This means PC to external hardrive, PC flash drives and PC to printer.
For professionals manipulating large video or CAD files it is especially useful.
Expect a lot of interest when the first USB 3.0 digital cameras and camcorders become available.
DVD burners are already a lot more attractive now that Buffalo have a model that uses USB 3.0 to increase write speed to 12x.
:smile: