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USB 3.0 Boosts Speeds and Bandwidth

Date: Feb 17 2010
Author: Sven Appel
Article ID: 1879

USB connections are nearly ubiquitous for linking computers to external devices. The USB 2.0 standard has already boosted data transfer rates. Now computer users are waiting for the faster speeds that will come from USB 3.0, also dubbed SuperSpeed USB.

SuperSpeed USB should offer transfer rates 10 times faster than USB 2.0, says Jeff Ravencraft of chipmaker Intel. Ravencraft Is head of Intel's USB Implementers' Forum. That division invented the Universal Serial Bus (USB) technology.

Better yet, despite five additional data channels, USB 3.0 cables should still be compatible with USB 2.0 connections.

Theoretically, USB 3.0's maximum data transfer rate should lie around 5 gigabits a second, says Benjamin Benz of c't, a German computer magazine.

"Purely speculatively, de facto rates of 300 megabytes per second could be reached." Among other factors, the data transfer rate is dependent on the cable's properties. On top of that, the first generation of the controller chips might not be able to fully accommodate these speeds. "But it's still noticeably faster than USB 2.0."

External hard drives will be the first devices to come out with USB 3.0 connections. Up until now, those drives could theoretically write data at rates of up to 120 megabytes per second. But slower, USB 2.0 speeds slowed that down to 31 to 35 megabytes per second.

"USB 3.0 clears up one of the biggest problems with these devices." To date, Buffalo and Western Digital have already marketed devices with the new standard.

Daniel Mauerhofer of Western Digital agrees that external hard drives will enjoy faster speeds with USB 3.0. The company's My Book 3.0 was the first external hard drive to be released with the new standard, earlier this year. That means a two-hour high-definition video can now be transmitted in three minutes, unlike in 13 minutes with USB 2.0.

The right combination of computer chips is needed for optimal speeds, says Mauerhofer. That means nothing older than Intel...Read the entire article...

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