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Everything USB 
USB 3.0
At the SuperSpeed Developers Conference in November 2008, Microsoft announced that Windows 7 would have USB 3.0 support, perhaps not on its immediate release, but in a subsequent Service Pack or update. It is not out of the question to think that following a successful release of USB 3.0 support in Windows 7, SuperSpeed support would trickle down to Vista. Microsoft has confirmed this by stating that most of their partners share the opinion that Vista should also support USB 3.0. SuperSpeed support for Windows XP is unknown at this point. Given that XP is a seven year old operating system, the likelihood of this happening is remote, as Microsoft in our opinion, will have to focus on the biggest bang for the buck applications. With the open-source community behind it, Linux will most definitely support USB 3.0 once the xHCI specification is made public. Currently available under non-disclosure agreement in version 0.95 (a draft specification), organizations are forbidden to ship code because it might reveal or imply what is in the specification. Once that hurdle is out of the way, the Linux USB stack would have to be updated to add support for USB 3.0 details such as bus speed, power management, and a slew of other significant changes detailed in the USB 3.0 specification. As is customary, Apple remains silent on the issue of SuperSpeed USB support in MacOS X. Our opinion is that if USB 3.0 realizes the promise of plug and play simplicity like USB 2.0 with dramatically increased speeds, the market for SuperSpeed devices will take off, and Apple will follow the trend. Whether or not this signals a threat to Firewire is not known, but you can be sure that Apple will need to support SuperSpeed if the rest of the industry adopts this interface standard. Given the iterative nature of any software release, USB 3.0 O/S support will come in stages and phases, where initial support may be buggy, slow, or lacking in some features. Over time, these bugs will be ironed out, but expect some growing pains as systems migrate and the development teams struggle to catch up to the high expectations of the computing community at large. We will get there, but it will take time. Anyone remember how buggy and unstable USB support was in the MacOS in all versions of OS 8 and OS 9 before OS X 10.2 arrived?
Will my existing peripherals still work? How will they co-exist?
The good news is that USB 3.0 has been carefully planned from the start to peacefully co-exist with USB 2.0. First of all, while USB 3.0 specifies new physical connections and thus new cables to take advantage of the higher speed capability of the new protocol, the connector itself remains the same rectangular shape with the four USB 2.0 contacts in the exact same location as before. Five new connections to carry receive and transitted data independently are present on USB 3.0 cables and only come into contact when mated with a proper SuperSpeed USB connection.
USB 3.0 USB 3.0 OS & Peripheral Compatibility
Updated in June 2011 What operating systems support USB 3.0?At the SuperSpeed Developers Conference in November 2008, Microsoft announced that Windows 7 would have USB 3.0 support, perhaps not on its immediate release, but in a subsequent Service Pack or update. It is not out of the question to think that following a successful release of USB 3.0 support in Windows 7, SuperSpeed support would trickle down to Vista. Microsoft has confirmed this by stating that most of their partners share the opinion that Vista should also support USB 3.0. SuperSpeed support for Windows XP is unknown at this point. Given that XP is a seven year old operating system, the likelihood of this happening is remote, as Microsoft in our opinion, will have to focus on the biggest bang for the buck applications. With the open-source community behind it, Linux will most definitely support USB 3.0 once the xHCI specification is made public. Currently available under non-disclosure agreement in version 0.95 (a draft specification), organizations are forbidden to ship code because it might reveal or imply what is in the specification. Once that hurdle is out of the way, the Linux USB stack would have to be updated to add support for USB 3.0 details such as bus speed, power management, and a slew of other significant changes detailed in the USB 3.0 specification. As is customary, Apple remains silent on the issue of SuperSpeed USB support in MacOS X. Our opinion is that if USB 3.0 realizes the promise of plug and play simplicity like USB 2.0 with dramatically increased speeds, the market for SuperSpeed devices will take off, and Apple will follow the trend. Whether or not this signals a threat to Firewire is not known, but you can be sure that Apple will need to support SuperSpeed if the rest of the industry adopts this interface standard. Given the iterative nature of any software release, USB 3.0 O/S support will come in stages and phases, where initial support may be buggy, slow, or lacking in some features. Over time, these bugs will be ironed out, but expect some growing pains as systems migrate and the development teams struggle to catch up to the high expectations of the computing community at large. We will get there, but it will take time. Anyone remember how buggy and unstable USB support was in the MacOS in all versions of OS 8 and OS 9 before OS X 10.2 arrived?
Will my existing peripherals still work? How will they co-exist?
The good news is that USB 3.0 has been carefully planned from the start to peacefully co-exist with USB 2.0. First of all, while USB 3.0 specifies new physical connections and thus new cables to take advantage of the higher speed capability of the new protocol, the connector itself remains the same rectangular shape with the four USB 2.0 contacts in the exact same location as before. Five new connections to carry receive and transitted data independently are present on USB 3.0 cables and only come into contact when mated with a proper SuperSpeed USB connection.
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