Comments on: USB 3.0 will crush eSATA, FireWire

Intel demonstrated a working version of USB 3.0 at CES last week. Here's what we can look forward to with the new technology.

[Greegor47]

If a new computer has 6 wire USB 3.0 ports would
my old USB 2.0 cables and devices be able to plug right in?

The beauty of USB 2.0 ports is that you can still plug
in the old USB 1.0 devices and use them.

Would this also be true of a new computer with 6 wire USB 3.0 ports?
If it works better for plugging in external hard disks, great!
If it won't work for plugging in the old stuff, then no thanks.

Right now, If you want to put a USB 2.0 port onto an
older computer, most of the add in cards use chipsets
that would require the older computer to have PCI 2.0 slots
which many older computers don't have.

[cahomsy]

Whatever happened to the promise of USB passthrough, where you would only need one USB port on your computer and be able to daisy chain 20+ pieces of hardware together? I have yet to be able to find a printer, external hard drive or anything else that has this ability. I don't know about the rest of you but I am over the fact that this "standard" has been completely dismissed and I now have to have every single USB port on every computer I own loaded up with them. I though a laptop was supposed to be portable, how can it be when you have to have all this crap attached to it?

[ppgrainbow]

10 of the 12 USB ports that are plugged into my MicroStar MSI-EX600 notebook (1 mouse, 1 USB floppy drive, the Targus Notebook Chillhub, Belkin 4 port USB hub and 6 other storage devices) still rely on USB 2.0, in which it still remains popular for almost a decade now.

When USB 3.0 becomes available in early 2010, I'm hoping that were will be a USB 3.0 converter that will work with this notebook that I'm using.

Since Windows XP is leaving Mainstream Support soon, I'm also hoping that there will be a supplement USB 3.0 driver once it comes out.

[FriedZombie]

Guys Guys!!!!

Please STOP ********!!!

why are you guys talking about which product is better when one of the products isn't even out yet?
Ugh...im sure if you guys went to a same site back when USB 2.0 came out they would have had the same exact complaints as you guys and you would be arguing back and forth between which format will be the most used blah blah blah (Blu-Ray vs. Digital Downloads) The point is the normal population doesn't care about you guys complaining back and forth which one will win, this article about which is better should be posted ATLEAST in 2015, maybe now you could make a prediction in which will win, and then laugh in their faces when you win (or visa versa...) but the bottom line is don't complain about which one will win, let time run its course, and the only reason you should be complaining is if you guessed which one would be more dominant early and you payed $7000 for a computer waay to early on, then you should be complaining (People who thought HD DVD was going to win for example...) and even then ITS YOUR FAULT ANYWAYS, so please for the second time stop with the ********

[mposner]

The thing that makes me laugh is that there are SSD devices utilizing the SATA 3Gb/sec interface running at 260+ MB/sec today, which is faster than the USB 3.0 CES demo that got everyone all excited. The CES reporters kept on comparing the USB 3.0 demo to traditional SATA based hard disk drives, not an apples to apples comparison. They missed the point that the interface is not the bottleneck, the backend storage media is. USB 3.0 just looks good when it is compared to good old USB 2.0 based devices.

SATA is and will continue to be the storage interface of choice. USB 3.0 has its place and it will be successful but the processing overhead will always be its Achilles heel. SATA is a far more efficient interface for mass storage. Cheaper as well

SATA and USB 3.0 will co-exist.

In addition, SATA 6Gb/sec is coming and as the protocol itself has hardly changed, just the signaling speed doubled, you can expect that it will roll out much faster than the original PATA to SATA transition.

[izmickey]

I dont know if any of you guys would agree with me but its seems USB is a standard, and SATA would come in second and firewire last because its very hard to come by a machine that has firewire, let alone the mini port. Its like firewire is the middle man. Usually the middle man gets taken out. Firewire looks like its gonna be sleeping with the fishes which is a shame because it does have better performance than USB. What can you do. It would be great if the companies would let us decide whether we want firewire on our system or not.

[kcotham]

FireWire all the way. It continually outperforms USB. It is a much better thought out standard than USB and much more elegant. Is this any surprise? FireWire was developed by Apple, at least in part. USB, by the Intel/Micro$oft crowd.

I'll put my money on the next iteration of FireWire over USB 3.0 any day.

[mtb3141]

USB 3.0 won't make Firewire obsolete at all. It won't touch eSATA either. eSATA can be used to connect multiple external drives to an SATA or SAS RAID controller, USB cannot. As for Firewire, it is designed as a peer to peer connection system unlike USB which has had PtP and other modes hacked in as after-thoughts. Firewire can be used to connect a digital video camera directly to a recording device and used as a video device, not as a mapped storage drive. Firewire can also be relied on to deliver the bandwidth requested whereas USB is often unable to meet its targets, partly because of how it doesn't separate data and control packets.

USB is a very cool technology, but it is not prepared to replace eSATA or Firewire. Both are well-used in niche markets and will continue to be used for what they're designed for.

[thirdrockphoto]

Apple did not drop Firewire. I am sure Apple researched customer use and found few of their non-power users used FW; most probably don't even know it is faster in the real world than USB 2.0, often twice as fast for video editing. The video pro users still get FW from Apple, since all MacPros and MacBook Pros still ship with FW800. Apple has a history of overlapping technologies; they started with SCSI drives in 1988, shipped their first Mac with IDE in 1996, first SATA in 2004, while still seeing some pro video users stick with dual-channel SCSI Ultra-640 RAID with 15,000RPM drives even today.

Apple recently applied for a patent related to eSATA computer-to-computer connection and boot, similar to FW target disk mode. FW will soon be shipping as 1600 or 3200 (6400 is still a couple of years away). The run-of-the-mill PCs will likely opt for USB 3.0 because they depend on "spec counters" for their customers, but I am betting that Apple, long a proponent of hands-on performance over spec numbers, will go with eSATA and FW3200 in the next 12-18 months.

I believe Apple ditched firewire on their lower spec computers as usb 2 is more than adequate for most consumers whilst firewire is mainly used by professionals for video editing and music creation. Professionals wouldn't buy lover spec computers so it was probably just a cost effective move.

[TheOne6152]

If USB 3.0 will supposedly be much faster than e-sata will hard drives connect with USB instead?

[kenseyx]

Future USB 3.0 will not be faster than current esata II. Don't believe theoretical numbers on a datasheet. Especially with the track record of USB.

[Snootpelt]

And almost 1 full year later Intel still doesn't support USB 3.0 with any products. Sort of like how there are still no affordable SSDs and how SDXC chips aren't yet available and many software vendors still don't support 64 bit CPUs and...