USB 3.0: 25GB Gone in 70 Seconds

USB 3.0: 25GB Gone in 70 Seconds

Samir Makwana, Nov 13, 2008 1722 hrs IST

Faster and backward compatibile too

Jeff Ravencraft, president for USB-IF, revealed that the USB 3.0 specifications will be fully released on November 17, at the SuperSpeed USB Developers Conference in San Jose. It's being predicted that implementers of the USB 3.0 Promoters Group will get the fully signed-off specifications only in 2009. So, the devices clad with USB 3.0 specifications would be available in late 2009 or 2010 and best part is they'll have backward compatibility with USB 1.1 and 2.0 interfaces.

Also named as SuperSpeed USB 3.0, it promises phenomenal 5GB/sec transfer speed. It guarantees ten-fold performance boost as compared to the current USB 2.0 which offers bandwidth of 600 MB/sec. As per the performance test comparison which transferred a 25GB HD movie:

USB 1.1 took 9.3 hours
USB 2.0 - 13.9 minutes
USB 3.0 - 70 seconds

Lars Giusti, project and program manager for USB technology in Windows, Microsoft, said, "The Microsoft USB core team is currently evaluating which operating systems we should support USB 3.0 on. It's a difficult decision and a difficult choice because there are all these moving parts. Our goal is to have the USB 3.0 specs signed off by the promoter's group sometime later this month."

Those looking for faster data transfers between drives and other USB 3.0 powered storage devices will have to wait till 2009.