USB 3.0's New Jacks and Sockets 390
The Register has a brief look posted (with photos and diagrams) of "USB 3.0, the upcoming version of the universal add-on standard re-engineered for the HD era, made a small appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES)." The posting explains that USB 3.0 "wasn't demonstrated in operation, but we did get to see what the new connectors look like." How does it handle backward compatibility? The extra pins needed for USB 3.0 "are placed behind the USB 1.1/2.0 ones. USB 3.0 connectors and receptacles will be deeper than the current ones."
Is it burst speed? (Score:5, Interesting)
I sure hope they've addressed this issue. The OS caching helped, unless you wanted to unplug the damn thing right away - then you had to wait 5 minutes for the cache to flush out.
Re:Is it burst speed? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, and no.
You see, 480 Mbs is the electrical interface speed. As in, 480 Million bits go across the wire every second. Not all of those bits are used for traffic.
However, some of those bits are used by the overhead of the transfer protocol. You've got USB packets in the stream which do nothing but reserve space for some psuedo-realtime device which might be connected to the bus at any second. Whether or not the OS/USB Controller allocates these blank packets even in cases where they aren't needed is a matter of programming.
As an aside, I've noticed that on the same computer, with the same flash drive, Linux does a much faster job with file transfers than Windows. I suspect Windows is just under-utilizing the bus, to make it easier for their engineers. But I could be wrong, as I haven't looked into it in detail.
Re:Is it burst speed? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is it burst speed? (Score:5, Insightful)
In case a "clueless user" yanks it "without unmounting properly?" Excuse me, but I don't think that's a matter of the user being clueless. If I have a removable drive, I don't think it's unreasonable to be able to remove it at any time--the OS should expect that. If the OS is still writing data to the drive and there's some kind of window open to that effect, then I'm stupid for disconnecting it in the middle of the process. If I "finished" copying three minutes ago, I don't think it's unreasonable for me to be able to disconnect the drive.
This is why Linux is a great OS for a server but not so hot for the desktop. Write-caching for a USB drive might make sense on a server, but not so much on the desktop.
Re:Is it burst speed? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, neither that, nor what Windows does will prevent damage on a FAT32 formatted device, because the filesystem isn't made to deal with that. And even for a filesystem like ext3, reiserfs or ntfs that will not corrupt itself in this case, you'll still lose data if you yank the drive while a file is being written. Windows will warn you if you yank the drive without telling it to disconnect the drive precisely for this reason.
Really the only way of dealing with this perfectly is making the media impossible to disconnect until the filesystem is dismounted orderly. This can be done with CD and tape drives, but isn't going to work with anything connected to an USB port.
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Re:Is it burst speed? (Score:4, Interesting)
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I've used USB drives on Windows for years and I've never seen such a warning. It might warn you if you pulled it during a file copy (I've never done that, obviously it sounds like a bad idea) but certainly not if you wait for the copy to complete.
In fact, it would be really cool if it popped up an alert if you pulled the drive while it was still writing to the effect of "oh no! plug it back in
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Waiting 2 minutes to unmount without any progress meter is just broken UI design.
But... (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, the line to draw at what is 'obviously' transient may be hard, but I think 4GB and under and USB connected is a good rule of thumb today of transient sticks vs. persistantly attached usb storage. When you get into the realm of 'guessing' the intent of the user implicitly, things get hairy.
Oh it'll go at full capacity (Score:5, Funny)
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Why not 10GigE? (Score:2)
Yes, backward compatibility would be a problem, but I am sure compu
isochronous transfer... (Score:2)
Bus speed alone won't do everything we'd like USB to do...
shades of future past (Score:5, Insightful)
Now all we need is a MCA driver and we are in busienss for the new world of 1992.
More pins, huh (Score:2)
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http://scottstuff.net/blog/articles/2005/05/12/broadcom-pci-e-pci-x-combo-sas-card [scottstuff.net]
where you have 1 card and multiple board interfaces
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Will it work on Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Is the software side of USB an open specification or some members only, pass the royalty thing that the open source world will have to take the next ten years reverse engineering?
I figure it'll be like the current USB support - reading and writing from USB as such work, but the userland drivers needed to actually make any device work will be equally lacking as today. That said, things are improving so if ATI keeps up their promises and selective purchase of hardware, you can hopefully have a gizmofied high-end PC with only open source drivers. With commercial Linux offerings, you can bet Linux drivers is now on the checklist with many bigshot manufacturers. That's got to count for
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P.S. These things aren't that hard to find for yourself. You can almost always use Google and/or Wikipedia to find the Web site of the company or consortium that defines a specification, or a page that explains the licensing.
Other Fixes (Score:5, Insightful)
Oooh. It's faster. Wow. Didn't see that happening.
Did they fix the CPU overhead? Did they make a P2P version so that I don't need a computer to connect a camera to a hard drive and have it work? Basically, did they do anything to improve it for high-bandwidth applications (which is obviously what they're targeting) compared to FireWire?
The cable worries me some. I understand the drive for backwards compatibility, but it seems like they should make the cable more obviously different. It just looks like it will be too easy to accidentally use a USB 2 cable, not realize it, and then wonder why the device is running so slow. Just a little nub on the bottom of the connector would do it.
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Well as you know the Firewire had this feature in like 1990. I also agree it is very important to free USB from the PC. I also hate it when embedded devices only have unpowered USB so you have to always drag the device back to the PC.
Re:Other Fixes (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, they did. Several years ago, in fact. It's called USB On the Go [usb.org]
And it doesn't work (Score:5, Interesting)
USB OTG is a farce.
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There are two types of full size USB plugs, A and B. A always goes at the host end B always goes at the perhipheral end.
There are also two types of mini plugs mini A and mini B. But unlike with the full size connectors there is also a socket called mini AB that takes both. The same applies to the micro connectors.
Mini plugs have five pins. The extra pin is used to indicate to a device with a mini AB socket whether it shou
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Actually, it's not strictly P2P using USB OTG. One device is still the host, the other the client. It's just there's a complex protocol they can go through (Host Negotiation Protocol) to switch roles if necessary. Of course, both sides have to support OTG.
Also, there aren't many devices out there that are actually OTG complaint.
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Just goes to show... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just goes to show... (Score:5, Funny)
longer male connectors are better.
Nooo it's not how long they are but what they do. Besides if female connectors like long male connectors bigger that's because they themselves are *too* deep. A short male connector fits a "shallow" female connector as nicely as a long male connector fits a deep female connector.
So girls, quit complaining and laughing and get it worked out! Oh wait, oops..
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if female connectors like long male connectors bigger
Err crap, I'm afraid I meant better. Quite a slip of the tongue indeed.. :-S
Then what's the point of SATAII? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Then what's the point of SATAII? (Score:4, Informative)
The problem with SATA, IMHO, is that makes a shoddy external connector. There is no notion of hubs or even daisy-chaining. USB and Firewire both support hubs, whereas Firewire supports daisy-chaining. With SATA you need as many external SATA sockets on your computer as you have external SATA drives. If your main computer is a portable, then this is a poor solution.
Re:Then what's the point of SATAII? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's one that I found with a couple seconds of googling: http://www.cooldrives.com/sahub5muussi.html [cooldrives.com]
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The point of difference busses (Score:3, Insightful)
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1993 called. They want their bus back.
Video goes on either AGP bus (for older systems) or the PCI-E bus.
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I'm fairly confident SATA is easier on the CPU than USB. Besides as I heard (in some previous comment), USB isn't too good at high speed continuous transfers, more at bursting.
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Also there are high end SAS / SATA RAID cards with there own ram and cpus.
Naming (Score:5, Funny)
Probably not (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Probably not (Score:5, Funny)
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That was my exact though (minus the "Supreme Ranger" part.) I was searching the thread to make sure nobody else had made fun of the name, and came on your post.
I swear I was going to post "Super Mega Ultra Speed USB"... (Of course, now I would look like a copycat.)
Re:Probably not (Score:4, Funny)
Private: Captain EHCI, unknown device in range!
Captain: Run level 9 enumeration protocol, stat!
Private: Error -123: device is not accepting our address!
Captain: Arm the compatibility layer and reset the host controller!
Private: Device is a Super Mega Ultra class AHCI master!
Captain: Increase port voltage to 480V and reenumerate!
*ZZAP*
Private: Reporting overcurrent condition on port 5, and Super Mega Ultra device running in low-speed compatibility mode!
Captain: Roger that, commence loading driver modules.
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Re:Probably not (Score:5, Funny)
There's really no other option...
Re:Probably not (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Naming (Score:5, Informative)
FTA:
Dubbed SuperSpeed USB, the third major incarnation of the serial bus standard is set to deliver data transfer speeds of around 4.7Gb/s - ten times today's 480Mb/s limit.
They haven't TM'd it yet though.
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Next version will be... (Score:2, Funny)
Will they paint the connectors plaid?
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its like DB9 all over again... (Score:4, Interesting)
the more things change, the more they stay the same -- now
they're back to using 9 pins to implement the spec -- other than
making the connectors physically different so people don't end up
plugging in old RS-422 cables into it -- from the number of actual
pins needed to implement a spec -- we're physically back to using
9 pins that were available in the DB9 form factor, only this connector
is considerably more difficult to manufacture.
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Still using rectangular connectors, I see. (Score:5, Funny)
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It's a tragedy, really...
A serious question (Score:5, Interesting)
Wasn't it vastly superior to USB? It had a higher maximum throughput that could almost be realistically achieved, delivered useful amounts of power over the bus, and allowed devices to talk to each other. The audio/video features are pretty nice as well....
Both firewire and usb were well-supported on all platforms, so *that*'s not the issue. It's also robust, to the point of being found in many modern aircraft designs and the space shuttle.
IEEE1394c is even cooler, and uses CAT5e/RJ45 for wiring, allowing for automatic negotiation between other 1394 devices, and normal ethernet devices. Max speed is 800mbps, and it very nicely bridges the gap between "traditional" peripherals, and network-attached devices.
So what happened? Did I miss something? Who killed Firewire?
Re:A serious question (Score:5, Interesting)
I see sata taking over for external hard drives. I converted all my firewire 800 external drives on my powermac tower to SATA 3 drives last year and gained a crapload of performance at 1/3rd the price. but every HD camcorder that is more than a toy for the masses has firewire on it and will be there forever. Even the hard drive based cameras from panasonic that cost more than most guys' houses still have firewire on them.
Problem is SATA has a failure point. I can have 20 foot firewire cables.. good luck making sata work over 3 feet.
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If you're talking about eSATA, I wouldn't be posting that prediction in this thread. It's got a long way to go.
good luck making sata work over 3 feet.
The eSATA spec is 2m max cable length.
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Really? The last several computers I've purchased all had integrated Firewire ports. We're purchasing a couple new digital video cameras (at a few thousand dollars each), and it is Firewire all the way. I think Firewire is doing just fine in the arena it was designed for. To me USB is a bloated mess (ever try to do any low-level USB programming? It's a joke!) that ended up pretty much being mediocre all around.
Dan
Re:A serious question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A serious question (Score:5, Informative)
Firewire is far from dead, however... Nearly all consumer/prosumer mini dv cameras use it (including hdv cameras), many set top boxes and HDTVs have 1394 links on them for connecting devices (DVHS decks, HDTVs, and cable boxes... this transport MPEG-2 transport streams), and every mac since the iMac debuted has shipped with firewire ports on it (Many, many external hard drives have firewire ports on them.. the good ones anyways
So, to answer your question, consumers "killed" firewire by being... well... price conscious consumers. But in reality it's not going anywhere, and with any luck and all the cool networking capabilities the firewire spec has these days it will eventually catch on with the majority of consumers as a convenient way to interconnect devices and stick around for good.
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Wrong. The original iMacs just had 2 USB ports. Firewire didn't appear until the iMac DV/SE.
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Many say that USB consorium is more organised and actually delivers. While Firewire has been promising, it's market has been difficulty to deliver actual results. And also there is simple reason wh
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Firewire chips are more expensive.
Apple used to charge a licensing fee for Firewire. It wasn't much, a buck or two, but that annoys people. Dunno if they still do.
USB is really useful for keyboards and mice, very convenient for little flash drives that don't need the full meal deal of Firewire. Ubiquity made USB more popular. Firewire is still popular on higher-end machines, and still cheap to add via expansion slots.
Firewire = Betamax version (Score:2)
Patents killed it (Score:3, Interesting)
Patent royalties, I believe, or at least that's the popular impression: this guy [teener.com] seems to be saying that Steve Jobs attempted to hike the royalty price and though he wasn't ultimately successful, perhaps the mere suggestion that he could was enough to sour third party implementors and move them to USB.
Like with Token Ring vs Ethernet and Objective-C vs C++, the answer seems to be that if there's a nearly-almost-good-enough open technology and a w
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Re:A serious question (Score:5, Informative)
Apple didn't support IP over Firewire networking until around 10.3.5 IIRC. Now that it's there, it is actually quite useful on Macs as a secondary network interface, since all modern Macs have FW400 and many now have FW800 too. Macs also have smart enough firmware to use Firewire in Target Mode, which is a significant feature other PCs won't match anytime soon.
The new FW3200 uses the same connector as FW800, an advantage over the different and more complex USB 3.0 connector.
Another advantage of Firewire is that it provides higher voltage for charging, so it can power more significant devices and can recharge devices faster. It's noticiably faster to charge iPods/iPhone over Firewire. The 30-pin Dock Connector has Firewire compatible pins for charging, even though modern iPods don't support Firewire for data exchange.
There's really no reason for Apple to drop Firewire, and it will be difficult for PC makers to match the features of Macs even when including Firewire ports on their PCs. Not only do BIOS PCs lack any firmware support for target mode use, but Microsoft dropped IP over Firewire in Vista (!). USB 3.0 might bump the speed for new devices, but it doesn't match the Firewire-related features that exist now, and doesn't match the throughput of FW3200, which is also in the pipeline.
Ten Big Predictions for Apple in 2008 [roughlydrafted.com]
What's Apple going to be up to in 2008? The previous article looked at clues from the Newton MessagePad to the iPhone. Here's a look at the potential future of the rest of Apple's businesses, from hardware to software to services.
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USB's biggest shortcoming - cable length (Score:2)
Ideally, I would like to have long DVI and long USB cables, then I could put my computer in the other room altogether. The noise improvement would be HUGE.
Hopefully, it'll be New Jack CITY and not ... (Score:2)
(assuming there'll be technical impositions alluded to elsewhere...)
I hate USB connectors (Score:2)
Maybe I suck at USB cables, but it's the only kind of cable I have to double check for fear of destroying hardware. Cases are never on properly so it's not like it just slides in easily the right way either.
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http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=357371/ [belkin.com]
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One suggestion (Score:5, Insightful)
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Here's a tip..... USB 1 CABLES - THROW THEM OUT. Serious. Under what possible circumstance could you ever say, "oh bugger, I need a USB cable, and all I have is these stupid 2.0 cables?" (ok, ok, the exception is when you need a USB3.0 cable).
Repeat after me; throw out old cables.
Re:One suggestion (Score:5, Informative)
Just asking, because you sound too serious to be joking.
Re:One suggestion (Score:5, Funny)
If you put the 2.0 cables in the freezer to align the molecules before you use them you get even better bus response. All of my devices have this warmer, more human feel when I'm using properly-designed cables.
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Re:One suggestion (Score:4, Funny)
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Umm, you do realize that USB 1.0 and 2.0 use the exact same cables and connectors, don't you?
Just asking, because you sound too serious to be joking.
But the thing with going to USB2 is that you have to loop the cable at the device side. See, the datastream is coming with such force, if you don't put the loop in the line it will be coming with too much pressure to be written properly. The loop helps slow the data flow to a writable rate.
With the high-speed hard drives these days, defag is more important than ever. At lower speeds, you could get away with having your data spread unevenly over the platters. With the rpm's the drives are doing now, that ki
They (Score:2)
Still half vertically symmetric (Score:5, Insightful)
Either change the shape of the connector (something like RJ11 would be fine) or make the pins such that it can be inserted right-way up or upside down (figure-eight power cable connectors for example).
Re:Still half vertically symmetric (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, this would require abandoning backwards compatibility... but seriously, by the time that there are only USB3 ports on a device, I'm pretty sure we'll be past needing to plug 2.0 devices into it, and if we need to use an old device that badly, it would be easy enough to make them electrically compatible such that a simple dumb cable adapter can fit it. Old device standards are passed by for new ones all the time, and clinging to backwards compatibility at the costs of advancement can be a serious mistake - clinging to backwards compatibility at all costs is a significant amount of what's hampering Windows right now, for example.
more pins: yuck (Score:3, Funny)
Socket? (Score:2)
Er, were those plumbers supposed to be here this show?
nice reference (Score:3, Funny)
But... (Score:2, Informative)
I can't wait for this to take off (Score:2, Funny)
Universal asynchronous parallel port (Score:2)
(o-o-omfg ponies) EXTRA PINS??!?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
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1 pin (middle) - ground (I suspect that with the higher bandwidth they're adding a signal ground separate from the already existing shared signal/power ground. this may be completely false).
2 pins (probably differential twisted pair) - "USB3_TX" - is USB3 departing from the shared-differential-bus setup?
2 pins (also probably a diff. TP) - "USB3_RX"
USB1/2 was somewhat special in contrast to Ethernet or IEEE
What's with the flat connectors? (Score:2)
What about XP drivers? (Score:4, Insightful)
USB's plug design is horrible (Score:3, Insightful)
I absolutely HATE the A-series (the most common) USB plug. If you are going by feel alone, you have a 50% chance of orienting the plug correctly the first time.
So frustrating. (And so is the round DIN, but that's for another time)
A good design, like D-subminiature, CAT5, and headphone jack make blind insertion easy and near-foolproof (no sex jokes please, slashdotters).
USB B-series is a lot better, but sadly isn't as ubiquitous.
Also: I'm guessing that PCI expansion cards couldn't fully utilize USB3.0?
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