Intel's announced USB 3.0 specification could push throughput beyond 4Gbps (300MBps) at the application level while introducing Quality of Service in support of HD video streams. Besides supplanting Firewire once and for all, a clear goal of the new "SuperSpeed USB" is to keep up with the transfer speeds of flash chips. "We don't want to be the bottleneck in the system," says Intel's Jeff Ravencraft who is overseeing the 3.0 initiative. Intel, HP, Microsoft, NEC, NXP, and TI will present the initial spec for a design review in November with first silicon to be stamped in "early 2009." While the new interconnect (pictured) will remain backward compatible with USB 2.0 and prior devices, new cables laced with an optical link and a max length of 2-meters will be required to take advantage of those high speeds according to a senior engineering manager with NEC. Meanwhile, a 1Gbps throughput is being targeted with Ravencraft's other baby:
Wireless USB 1.1. Sounds great, but with existing 480Mbps Wireless USB silicon only achieving about 40Mbps in practice, Intel would be wise to focus on efficiency, not theory. Of course, it's all just a lot of smack-talk 'til they deliver, but with Apple running Intel inside now, Sony putting USB in their camcorders, and eSATA proliferating for external disks... well, Firewire's days sure seem numbered.
[Via
EETimes and
The Inquirer]
posted September 19th 2007 8:10AM
Umm... until USB is a any-any connectivity ( rather than host arbitrated like it is now ) it will still SUCK!
They call it a USB "hub" for a reason, only one device can talk at a time and it must be talking with the CPU. Devices can not talk with other devices without going through the CPU.
Wouldn't increasing the power while saving the old USB connector result in a lot of fried components. I hope they do just that.
"I once forced a USB plug in the wrong way and blew my motherboard."
If you keep forcing a plug in until it fits in there the wrong way, rather than just turning it around when you noticed that it doesn't want to go in, then maybe it's best for everybody if you just never used a computer again.
Shut up! Some badly made USB ports will let you put a plug in the wrong way using reasonable force! I did that with a laptop which wasn't on at the time luckily! Also kids are terrible at breaking USB ports, people kick their tower because its under the desk and even seen one where it fell from a shelf, yanking all devices from the ports hehe! We usually have to replace the motherboard.
Has ANYONE in the industry bothered to listen to professional videographers? If they had we'd be seeing a next generation standard that also focuses on CONNECTOR DURABILITY. Firewire's main bugaboo has always been the their wonky 4-pin connector, and at least one camera manufacturer (JVC) has gone with the more robust 6-pin port. But so far no one has given the professional operator what they want most, a METAL connector that CLICKS into place, STAYS there, and doesn't fry the port at the drop of a hat.
So don't start celebrating until that one tiny objective is dealt with...are you listening, industry?
Yeah, I'm listening, you prick!
Industry
USB is about burning CPU cycles. Intel sells CPU cycles, not efficiency or having the best protocols for data transfers. Now that Apple is in the intel camp, I'm afraid FW is dead. Too bad because FW allowed data transfer between devices without needing special drivers or using the CPU as the middleman for every byte transferred.
ah, but can it maintain a high sustained throughput like firewire without spiking the CPU and slowing a file xfer down??
yes, consumer electronics are gradually leaving firewire and going USB. with this news, it looks like USB will probably remain popular for a while at least. however, what about professional-grade electronics? im talking largely about the devices used especially in the video and audio production industry. I am an audio engineer and I know that this industry tries to shy away from USB. Firewire is always the way to go, and most devices have firewire connectivity. its actualy the cheaper devices that dont have firewire and have USB instead. im not exactly sure why firewire has popularity in this industry, but i think it has something to do with latency issues, not necessarily transfer speeds. so even tho USB might have a faster transfer speed, firewire is still preferred in this industry because it seems to handle the stream of data in a more organized, efficient manner so as to reduce latency.
Standards...
The greatest thing about them is that there are so many!
While I would love to see all my Firewire and USB devices of various speeds and plug shapes (ARGGGGH!)replaced by one standard, I have my doubts. The problems are that these 2 protocols were not originally designed to be competing protocols but complementary. The main issue when comparing the two is not bandwidth.
Excepted from the wikipedia piece on USB (and is basically correct):
"USB was originally seen as a complement to FireWire (IEEE 1394), which was designed as a high-speed serial bus which could efficiently interconnect peripherals such as hard disks, audio interfaces, and video equipment. USB originally operated at a far lower data rate and used much simpler hardware, and was suitable for small peripherals such as keyboards and mice.
The most significant technical differences between FireWire and USB include the following:
* USB networks use a tiered-star topology, while FireWire networks use a repeater-based topology.
* USB uses a "speak-when-spoken-to" protocol; peripherals cannot communicate with the host unless the host specifically requests communication. A FireWire device can communicate with any other node at any time, subject to network conditions.
* A USB network relies on a single host at the top of the tree to control the network. In a FireWire network, any capable node can control the network.
These and other differences reflect the differing design goals of the two buses: USB was designed for simplicity and low cost, while FireWire was designed for high performance, particularly in time-sensitive applications such as audio and video. Although similar in theoretical maximum transfer rate, in real-world use, especially for high-bandwidth use such as external hard-drives, FireWire 400 generally has a significantly higher throughput than USB 2.0 Hi-Speed. The newer FireWire 800 standard is twice as fast as FireWire 400 and outperforms USB 2.0 Hi-Speed both theoretically and practically."
i hope USB 3 will make it into Q4 of 2007 i dont want to have to wait 6 months to get a new pc, please intel eh?
Firewire does seem dead...anybody tried to buy a firewire webcam in last year or two?
Plus...all new dv cameras (at least most models) only seem to offer USB connectivity now and have dropped 1394.
You mean I'll FINALLY be able to record more than 2 tracks at a time with a usb interface?!
I agree with anyone who says that getting USB devices to go right-side-up can be difficult.
It's not so bad when you can see the plug and the device (like a USB drive) has a clear "top". But when you're trying to plug a printer's USB cable into the back of the computer, or a USB drive into the front of a computer with a sliding USB plug cover (such as the Dell 8400 http://sectorcomputer.com/catalog/images/DELL_8400_chassis_front.jpg)
it can be a real pain in the neck.
Dell are a real PITA with this kinda thing. The front-mounted USB ports under that cover are not only obscured, but also on an awkward angle and upside down.
I -REALLY- hope that pro audio device manufacturers get involved in the USB3 spec early on... USB2 never really caught on for audio interfaces for reasons mainly involving real world bandwidth I'm assuming... and firewire for audio has been a complete disaster: alot of interfaces perform poorly, inconsistently or not at all unless you have a firewire card with a very specific TI chipset.
I'd love to not have to deal with PCI cards for consistent performance, but audio 'over a cable' has been a total disaster thusfar.
Just how do you mean "firewire for audio has been a complete disaster"? I've used many firewire audio interfaces with factory chipsets on several different machines and have seen great performance.
I've chained 3 presonus interfaces for a total of 24 simultaneous tracks and it ran like a champ.
All I know is, that of the 3 iPods I have, I have the least flakiness when connecting the 4G over Firewire, than the Shuffle or 5.5G ones. 'Course that could be partly due to the quasi-supported status of the USB2.0 card I have in the computer. USB is fine for mice, but for anything more, I'd rather have Firewire or eSATA.
The other thing about FireWire, which you don't mention regarding USB 3.0, is the asynchronous/isochronous issue. Since FW offers both, you're guaranteed data without bottlenecks, even if the data isn't complete - an important consideration for media environments such as audio and video, where you don't always want or need the full set of data to get the image. USB on the other hand will keep sending bits of data if it screws up and you can end up with a lot of lag which doesn't really suit mission-critical audio/video environments. One of the reasons that a majority of external semi-pro audio interfaces have FireWire and not USB. It's not a bandwidth issue for them.
Correct me if I am wrong but arent we still bottlnecked on the mobo at 133mb.
They need to get the bandwidth updated now.
If the mobo's has matching speed to USB 2.0 or Firewire they would be so much faster.
Despite this I still think its great. USB 2.0 kept me from having to open my tower for speedy device connections.
I can't find when they say this will be released...
Personally, I'm going to stick with FireWire even after USB 3.0 comes out and it's for one simple reason: No data lost during transfers.
One of my previous LaCie externals had USB 2.0 and FireWire 400. While USB 2.0 is supposed to be higher speed, FireWire got higher sustained speeds, but that's not what made me stay with it. When I checked to see if all the data was transferring over I noticed the file sizes didn't match. Nothing too large, not much more than 10kb over a 4gb file, but that adds up. And that could be just enough to destroy a file if it's in the right place.
FireWire worked perfectly fine, never different file sizes.
come on apple fight it, kick they're bum, be special
USB cannot network, therefor firewire will always have a clear advantage in certain applications (ie firewire boot drives, Mac target disc mode etc...)