
Dubbed SuperSpeed USB, USB 3.0 promises a major leap forward in transfer speeds and capability, while maintaining backwards compatibility with USB 2.0 devices. It may sound straightforward, but a lot has had to change; in this FAQ we will address the most common questions about USB 3.0 and explain in plain English what it all means.
What is USB 3.0?
USB 3.0 is the next major revision of the ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus, created in 1996 by a consortium of companies led by Intel to dramatically simplify the connection between PC and peripherals. It is in fact the first major revamp (following Wireless USB and USB On-the-Go) to stay current with modern demands for connectivity bandwidth.
Fast forwarding to 2012, USB 2.0 has been firmly entrenched as the de-facto interface standard in the PC world for a decade. Yet there’s still the need for more speed by ever greater bandwidth demand from devices, such as a SandForce flash drive, 7200-rpm hard drive or dual-head HD video adapter, again drive us to where a couple of hundred megabits per second is just not fast enough.
In 2007, Intel demonstrated SuperSpeed USB at the Intel Developer Forum. Version 1.0 of the USB 3.0 (confusing, isn’t it?) specification was completed on November 17, 2008. As such, the USB Implementers Forum has taken over managing the specifications and publishes the relevant technical documents necessary to allow developers and hardware manufacturers to begin to develop products around the USB 3.0 protocol.
What are the major USB 3.0 improvements?
In a nutshell, USB 3.0 promises the following:
- Higher transfer rates (up to 4.8Gbps)
- Increased maximum bus power
- New power management features
- Full-duplex data transfers
- Support for new transfer types
- Backward USB 2.0 compatibility
- New connectors and cables
The enhancements to SuperSpeed USB are not just for higher data rates, but for improving the interaction between device and host computer. While the core architectural elements are inherited from before, several changes were made to support the dual bus arrangement, and several more are notable for how users can experience the improvement that USB 3.0 makes over USB 2.0:
- More power when needed
- 50% more power is provided for unconfigured or suspended devices (150 mA up from 100 mA), and 80% more power is available for configured devices (900 mA up from 500 mA). This means that more power-hungry devices, such as a 22″ monitor or speedy portable drive, could be bus powered, and battery powered devices that previously charged using bus power could potentially charge more quickly.
- A new Powered-B receptable is defined with two extra contacts that enable a devices to provide up to 1000 mA to another device, such as a Wireless USB adapter. This eliminates the need for a power supply to accompany the wireless adapter…coming just a bit closer to the ideal system of a wireless link without wires (not even for power). In regular wired USB connections to a host or hub, these 2 extra contacts are not used.
- Less power when it’s not needed
Power efficiency was a key objective in the move to USB 3.0. Some examples of more efficient use of power are:- Link level power management, which means either the host computer or the device can initiate a power savings state when idle
- The ability for links to enter progressively lower power management states when the link partners are idle
- Continuous device polling is eliminated
- Broadcast packet transmission through hubs is eliminated
- Device and individual function level suspend capabilities allow devices to remove power from all, or portions of their circuitry not in use
- Streaming for bulk transfers is supported for faster performance
- Isochronous transfers allows devices to enter low power link states between service intervals
- Devices can communicate new information such as their latency tolerance to the host, which allows better power performance
What improvements are made to USB 3.0 cables & hubs?
Additionally, some USB 3.0 hardware, such as hubs, may always be more expensive than their USB 2.0 counterparts. This is because by definition, a SuperSpeed hub contains 2 hubs: one that enumerates as a SuperSpeed hub, and a second one that enumerates as a regular high-speed hub. Until the USB hub silicon becomes an integrated SuperSpeed USB plus Hi-Speed USB part, there may always be a significant price difference. Some unofficial discussion has surfaced on the web with respect to fiber-optic cabling for longer cable length with USB 3.0. The specification makes no mention of optical cabling, so we conclude that this will be defined in a future spec revision, or left to 3rd party companies to implement cable extension solutions for SuperSpeed USB.
What new applications does USB 3.0 enable?
Is faster USB 3.0 already planned?
What’s certain is that the new specs won’t be completed until later half of 2013. First wave of “double-speed” USB 3.0 products likely won’t hit stores until 2015. Frankly speaking, there’s a 8 year gap between USB 3.0 and 2.0; few really expected a revision just 5 years after the formal introduction of the current standard in 2008.
How does USB 3.0 achieve the extra performance?
Furthermore, the signaling method, while still host-directed, is now asynchronous instead of polling. USB 3.0 utilizes a bi-directional data interface rather than USB 2.0′s half-duplex arrangement, where data can only flow in one direction at a time. Without getting into any more technical mumbo jumbo, this all combines to give a ten-fold increase in theoretical bandwidth, and a welcome improvement noticeable by anyone when SuperSpeed USB products hit the market.
Isn’t USB 2.0 fast enough?
What operating systems support USB 3.0?
Apple has remained silent on the issue of USB 3.0 support in Mac OS X even when the public knows well that Macs will eventually get Ivy Bridge (Intel third-gen Core i CPUs) whose Panther Point platform comes with USB 3.0, for free. For a while, there was an ongoing debate over whether or not Apple will adopt USB 3.0 given its enthusiasm for Thunderbolt. But in mid-June 2012 at WWDC, Apple finally introduced USB 3.0 to its entire line of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro as part of Ivy Bridge processor refresh and at the same time, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) was announced to ship in the following month. So, USB 3.0 support on Macs officially begins with Mountain Lion.
LaCie and HighPoint have developed their own USB 3.0 driver for Mac to work with Mac OS X from Leopard (10.5). LaCie solution however only works with its own drives, including FastKey SSD, 2big RAID, Rikiki portable drive.
Windows 8
In October 2012, Microsoft started shipping Windows 8 with built-in USB 3.0 support. The Windows team said it has written completely new software stack for USB 3.0 rather than adding support on top of the current USB 1.1/2.0 drivers. To save time, work on USB 3.0 software stack actually began way before there were any peripherals so the engineers had to come up with something called virtual USB 3.0 devices for simulations. In retrospect, the team probably has plenty of time since USB 3.0 wasn’t an instant hit and was slow to take off.
Built-in support for USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP) will come as well. This will supplement Bulk-Only Transport (BOT) which has its roots in USB 1.1. USAP class driver, which benefits mass storage applications, adds command queuing to deal with multiple concurrent requests and offers lower overheads than BOT protocol. In other words, you will see even faster transfer rate and lower CPU usage. Only a handful of USB 3.0 drives support USAP as of this writing but on Windows 8, USAP mode will only kick in when the drive interfaces with a USB 3.0 host controller that conforms to xHCI 1.0 specification.
Windows 7, Vista & XP
Intel, Renesas and other fabs have been updating their own stable USB 3.0 software stacks for Windows 7, Vista and XP in the last several years. So there’s no reason for us to believe Redmond is in any hurry to bring USB 3.0 support via service packs to the aforementioned Windows platforms.
Will my existing peripherals still work? How will they co-exist?
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