USB 3.0 ten times faster than USB 2.0!
USB stands for Universal Serial Bus, and as most of you know it’s used to transfer data between a host computer and peripheral devices. Now I don’t know about you, but there’s no such thing as fast enough. USB 2.0 is the current interface standard and has a maximum transfer rate of 480 Mbps which means in real time, data is transferred at about 300 Mbps.
The USB 3.0 upgrade will mean data transfer rates of upto ten times faster at 2-3 Gbps. It will also utilize 1/3rd the power of its predecessor and allow for new types of data transfer. This technology was actually realized in 2007, but it’s just in 2010 that we will begin to see mass deployment. At the CES, there were 17 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 certified deviced presented. According to me they should just stop this dilly-dallying and get it out already!
The beauty of USB 3.0 is that it’s backward compatible. Although you need a new cable and host adapter to achieve 3.0 speeds, you can still use it on a USB 2.0 port.
When will see it on notebooks and netbooks?
So far, only storage devices compatible with USB 3.0 have been announced. We’ll probably have to wait until the end of 2010 to see a significant number of hardware devices featuring it. There may be the odd release here and there though!
Filed under: Netbook