Symwave to demo USB 3.0 external storage solution at CES

We get the feeling that Symwave won't be the only outfit at CES 2009 showing off the flashiest revision of the USB protocol, but it will reportedly be the first to showcase USB 3.0 transfers to and from an external storage device. 'Course, we've already seen that SuperSpeed USB works (and works quickly), so we'll be most interested in seeing what external HDDs it relies on to make the magic happen. After all, the protocol can't gain traction without a small swarm of supportive devices on the market, right?

[FILA @ Dec 31st 2008 12:20AM]

Hopefully it really is fast, cuz after having my external 500gig, and transfering 4gig HD movies to it, it takes like 3 minutes to transfer.

[Flashpoint @ Dec 31st 2008 12:39AM]

WARNING: High speed USB device plugged into non-High Speed port. You're hardware may not work properly. To resolve this issue Click Here X

[Xenoterranos @ Dec 31st 2008 1:02AM]

Your X. It does nothing.









::shakes fist::

[Penguin Warlord @ Dec 31st 2008 1:33AM]

Just another thing to make my ipod become obsolete faster *glares at steve jobs* - *quickly takes back glare and hopes for forgiveness*

[KarlW @ Dec 31st 2008 1:53AM]

WTH does Steve Jobs have to do with any of this?

Everyone knows that the real reason he's getting ill is because he replaced his nervous system with daisy-chained firewire cables. He's not even thinking about USB.

[Knee to the Groin @ Dec 31st 2008 1:58AM]

You're gonna have to start glaring at Phil...

[va jj @ Dec 31st 2008 12:30AM]

would be great if all the old usb 2 devices can run at 3 speed as long as you have them on the computer.

[Arkenklo @ Dec 31st 2008 12:43AM]

No. They won't. Pretty obvious.

[BlurMagic @ Dec 31st 2008 1:34AM]

Yeahhhh...

The adapters aren't even the same. I don't think they will be backwards compatible..

[thatrotierkid @ Dec 31st 2008 8:31AM]

would be nice if my parents dial-up connection could handle broadband speeds if i plug it into my ethernet port

...god i hate being home

[iPhoney @ Dec 31st 2008 12:33AM]

if it's not at least two terabytes I'm not interested

[Flashpoint @ Dec 31st 2008 12:41AM]

If they could transfer 2TB from a laptop to a external drive - in less than 5 minutes - I'd be impressed

[Arkenklo @ Dec 31st 2008 12:44AM]

If they came up with a 2 Tb single external drive I'm impressed.

[Leo @ Dec 31st 2008 12:48AM]

@Arkenklo
Almost there -- Seagate has a single 1.5 TB hard drive. Also, it's "TB" (byte), not "Tb" (bit).

[Arkenklo @ Dec 31st 2008 12:55AM]

I know. That's why 2 Tb would be impressive.

Actually, it's TiB, Tebibyte, 1024^4. TB = 10^6 byte = 8*10^6 bit. Tb = 10^6 bit. But I usually write Tb, it looks better then TB.

[Xenoterranos @ Dec 31st 2008 1:04AM]

What they need to do is get two of those ridiculous terabyte ssd raid arrays and transfer a good 200 gigs between the two over usb3. That would probably demonstrate usb3's speed quite effectively.

[Arkenklo @ Dec 31st 2008 1:15AM]

Calculating a 100mb/sec average (approx the max speed of a modern 10'000 rpm sata 2 disk) 2 Tb (2000 Gb) would take 2000/100 = 20 secs to transfer. That's impressive.

[Arkenklo @ Dec 31st 2008 1:16AM]

Omg, I mean 200 secs, 3 min 20 sec. Sorry.

[Arkenklo @ Dec 31st 2008 1:19AM]

Wtf, I usually don't fail this hard.

2'000 Gb = 2'000'000 Mb
2'000'000/100 = 20'000 sec = almost 6 hours. I hope.

[loosely_coupled @ Dec 31st 2008 3:57AM]

Yea, that was pretty hardcore failing...


2 Terabytes in binary = 1024^4 = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes x2 = 2,199,023,255,552 bytes
100 Megabytes in binary = 1024^2 = 1,048,576 bytes x100 = 104,857,600 bytes

2,199,023,255,552 / 104,857,600 *-1sec = 20,972 seconds = 349 minutes = 5 hours 49 minutes

[Arkenklo @ Dec 31st 2008 12:45AM]

I wonder what Usb will be called, Ultra Speed?

[Arkenklo @ Dec 31st 2008 12:46AM]

* Usb 4

Goddamn typos.

[wakkawakka @ Dec 31st 2008 12:58AM]

SuperMegaMaxispeed USB.
Obviously.

[David @ Dec 31st 2008 1:01AM]

Actually....it would be called hyperspeed, but who's counting?

[Macha88 @ Dec 31st 2008 1:06AM]

That would be "Ultra Speed certified USB"

[reallynotnick @ Dec 31st 2008 1:08AM]

Pretty sure USB 4 is approaching ludicrous speed.

[Zeth Ethereal @ Dec 31st 2008 2:02AM]

you might want to proofread first before posting :P

[j hooo @ Dec 31st 2008 1:42AM]

and when USB 4 finally come out, the data it's transferring would approaching ludicrously large.

[Messymeese @ Dec 31st 2008 2:45AM]

Ludicrous Speed!!!!!!!!!!

[krs360 @ Dec 31st 2008 10:30AM]

I think you'll find it's god-speed.

[Eric @ Dec 31st 2008 2:58AM]

Are there any hard drive solutions, ssd in some sort of raid array perhaps, that could even attain 5GB/s? It is going to be difficult to max this spec out.

[Eric @ Dec 31st 2008 3:00AM]

Oh excuse me, 5 Gb/s

[loosely_coupled @ Dec 31st 2008 4:03AM]

Well, first of all, that 4.8 Gbps is a theoretical signaling rate, so more likely it will max out around ~3.5-4.0. Even at 4.0 Gbps, that is 500MB/sec. with traditional harddrives, you would need a significant RAID system to max that out, probably five disks or more. However, with SSDs it's a whole other story. Intel's 80/160GB X-25 SSDs (the lower-end MLC version) max out at around 230MB/sec read speed, so a pair of those would probably come close to saturating the connection...

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/09/10/review_intel_x_25m_ssd/page3.html

[linc @ Dec 31st 2008 8:21AM]

good

[JohnnyCool @ Dec 31st 2008 10:03AM]

Why bother with usb 3? we have Esata right now for storage. usb 2 for slower external stuff. Right?

[Jake Tobak @ Dec 31st 2008 11:22AM]

but why not?

[Arkenklo @ Jan 2nd 2009 4:29AM]

But for everything else? Your soon-to-be-superfast wifi usb-modem, your external graphic-card? That's what Usb will enable and that's the reason for Usb 3. Well not just those, but any data-intensive general external appliance.

[Joshua @ Jan 7th 2009 2:00PM]

Do we still need external power supply for this?