SuperSpeed USB to be 'successful', enthuses analyst
Faster version of popular bus to be popular too. Apparently
Four years from now, one in four gadgets with USB ports will support USB 3.0 - aka SuperSpeed USB.
That's the shock (not) conclusion of market watcher In-Stat in a report forecasting that a faster version of the hugely popular peripheral interconnect bus will also be very popular, a prediction that will cost you $3995 from In-Stat, but comes free of charge from us.
The USB 3.0 specification - designed to enable data transfer speeds of up to 5Gb/s - was finalised late last year, and silicon developers are already producing early controller chips. NEC, for example, began sampling one this month.
These efforts should see the first USB 3.0-equipped computers and devices debut late this year or early next.
Intel's is backing the standard, so expect it to be supported in the chip giant's chipsets quickly. That will drive take-up in the computer world, while manufacturers of external hard drives the obvious candidates to release the first SuperSpeed peripherals. ®
Special Report Inside USB 3.0: what makes SuperSpeed tick
COMMENTS
Reinventing The Wheel
Sounds like another re-invention of the wheel.
As others have said, why not stick with FireWire? USB was not designed with networking in mind, while FW networks work quite well. FW 800, 1600 and 3200 seem to work as designed insofar as transfer speeds are concerned. Unfortunately MicroSoft appears to no longer support FW, IIRC.
FW also doesn't need the CPU "overhead" that USB requires, it can stand on its own hardware-wise, another plus over any sort of USB.
If only FiberChannel and similar optical hardware wasn't so expensive, you'd have gobs of bandwidth to play with.
External Drive
@ Scott A. Brown
The new controllers are not due to ship until the end of the year. If you need a new drive now then buy it now. If you can wait 6+ months then do that.
I want a new External HD
But should I go for eSata now or wait for USB 3?
@Paul Shirley
Actually USB2 is completely incompatible to USB1. In fact you even have a completely different controller for both systems. If they had actually thought about the standard in the first place and consulted an electrical engeneer, they would have been able to come up with a working system in the first place.
Throughput
Throughput will be the issue, will it be piss poor like USB 2 or will it improve to be more like firewire.
