Usb 3.0 Coming Soon Specs in 2008 Release in 2010

[vidit 0]

The "SuperSpeed" USB Promotions Group was announced Tuesday at the Intel Developer Forum. The promotions group will get together with contributors over the next year to finalize a USB 3.0 spec that will, they hope, take care of our wired peripheral and syncing needs for another five years or more.
USB 3.0 is built upon, and is backwards-compatible with, the USB 2.0 "High Speed" spec. It would be generous to even call the specifications "early" at this stage, but the group still had lots of information about how USB 3.0 will work and what features it will provide. The spec should be finalized sometime in the middle of 2008, with initial devices available in '09, and broad deployment by 2010.

The main two goals of SuperSpeed USB are to provide a 10X boost in transfer rate (from 480-Mbits/s in USB 2.0 to 4.8 Gbits/s in USB 3.0), while dramatically lowering power consumption. One example of their speed goals is to transfer a 27GB HD movie to a portable device in 70 seconds. The same thing would take 15 minutes or more with HighSpeed USB (2.0). The SuperSpeed devices will use the same connectors and the same programming and device models as existing devices.

SuperSpeed USB (aka USB 3.0) still has a long way to go, but the development pace seems pretty rapid. The spec will probably be done, or nearly so, by the time Intel Development Forum rolls around next year, with initial device development underway. In two years' time, we might even have the first USB 3.0 devices on the market.

USB History

* USB 0.7 Released in November 1994.
* USB 0.8 Released in December 1994.
* USB 0.9 Released in April 1995.
* USB 0.99 Released in August 1995.
* USB 1.0 Release Candidate: Released in November 1995.
* USB 1.0 Released in January 1996. 1.5 Mbit/s (Low-Speed)
* USB 1.1 Released in September 1998. 12 Mbit/s (Full-Speed)
* USB 2.0 Released in April 2000. 480 Mbit/s (Hi-Speed)
* USB 3.0 Specification to be released by Intel and its partners mid 2008. Initial devices available in 2009, and broad deployment by 2010. 4.8 Gbit/s (Super-Speed)

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/79274-usb-30-to-boost-peripherals-to-multigigabit-speeds
Edited December 22, 2007 by Jeigh (see edit history)

[Sten 0]

sounds good although how much would a usb drive cost? usb 2.0 1 gb jump drives are like $20, how much would usb 3.0 bump them up by?it will be really good though having a really fast jump drive, i cant wait until it comes out. i hope they dont cost too much though.by the way, 500th post

[jimmy89 0]

the speed will be an added bonus when transferring data from computer to usb drives. If they could then make a usb bridge that was usb3 compatible then you could transfer information from computer to computer at those speeds!btw sten, congrats on the 500 posts!

[wutske 0]

jeeeej, more confusion . I can already imagine it; "USB 3.0 High Speed", "USB3.0 Compatible", "USB3.0 Drive" ... only to mislead people by letting them think they are buying something that works at USB3.0 speeds (this is the same thing that happened(s) with USB2.0).Btw, has anybody done the maths ? 4,8Gbps ... that is 600MB/s ! You realy need a kick-*bottom* raid setup to get even close to those speeds . The good news is that you can finaly connect 10 external HDDs without hogging the USB-bus . And in terms of PCIe lanes, USB3.0 will take up 3 PCIe 1.x lanes, 2 PCIe 2.x lanes or 1 PCIe 3.x lane, nice .

[toby 0]

There was another topic here talking about fiber-optics and gold, do plans for 3.0 include these?

Edited December 22, 2007 by toby (see edit history)

[kelvinmaki 0]

I personally feel the great of USB 3.0 is not only for the high transfer speed comparing to USB 2.0. But the power that USB 3.0 provide will be awesome as well. For those 500GB 3.5" Portable Harddisk that need an additional power supply will no longer need with USB 3.0. I find it quite a hassle for my harddisk to another power supply. But hopefully it will take off like USB 2.0. There are some technologies that never take off as in get popular in the market. eg. Bluetooth.

[x2envi 0]

As long as it is backward compatible and the sockets are the same, thats fine by me. I still operate in USB 1.1 devices you know and I have hubs on that that runs 6 slightly modified printer under a crossover network. hehehe