USB 3.0 hard drive

[wonderboy1953]

With USB 3.0, since it's 10 times faster than 2.0, would that mean an external hard drive would be quicker than an internal hard drive?

 

[The_Other_One]

Nope. External enclosures essentially use internal hard drives. These haven't even met the limitations of SATA. I don't know the specs of USB 3.0, but I suspect it'll simply emulate SATA like the past did. Even USB 2.0 was only able to acheive ATA33 speeds

 

[mtb211]

didnt even know 3.0 existed

 

[linkin]

it is set to release late 2010 i think. head over to techspot and search for usb 3.0

 

[Damorian]

It's fairly new. Just for some speed comparisons:
USB 1.0 is 12 Mbit/s, USB 2.0 480 Mbit/s, USB 3.0 is 4.8Gbit/s.
SATA (1st gen) is 1.5Gbit/s, SATA (2nd gen) is 3Gbit/s, SATA (3rd gen) is 6Gbit/s

Note that they will probably never have that kind of throughput, but that's the max ratings they're given. I just ran HDTune and it gave me a max read speed of 250MB/s (average was just under 200MB/s). Don't confuse MB/s and Mb/s (Megabytes and megabits). There's 8 bits to a byte so that's comes out to a max read speed of 2Gbit/s, which is only 1/3 of what it could be. Also note that these are two 7200rpm 1TB 64mb cache drives in raid 0. So basically, you won't see USB 3.0 reads faster than SATA. I'd be willing to say it will actually read slower. However, Expect USB 3.0 drives to read significantly faster than USB 2.0 drives.

 

[ScottALot]

Man, it's gonna be a hassle getting 3.0 into the place that 2.0 is in right now...

Do they make firewire flash drives btw?

 

[mtb211]

wow so having a sata 2nd gen hardrive really is a boost if your mobo is compatible?

 

[Damorian]

wow so having a sata 2nd gen hardrive really is a boost if your mobo is compatible?

You may see a performance increase. Not sure how large of one.

 

[linkin]

We won't know until it is officially released and used in retail systems... I bet they will release it october next year right before the chirstmas season and make it "the latest and greatest" technology to get sales up.

 

[jsmart7]

USB 3 is definitely faster than 2, but an external hard disk would not be. That is for sure.

 

[WeatherMan]

USB 3.0 Cards have just started hitting the high streets over in Japan

 

[Geoff]

USB 3 is definitely faster than 2, but an external hard disk would not be. That is for sure.

Yes it would, right now USB 2.0 is limited to 480Mbps (60MBps), while internal hard drives using SATAII can reach speeds almost double that.

And yes they do make firewire hard drives. They also have eSATA hard drives, so if you want an external hard drive that isn't limited by USB 2.0 speeds, get an eSATA drive.

 

[Damorian]

Yes it would, right now USB 2.0 is limited to 480Mbps (60MBps), while internal hard drives using SATAII can reach speeds almost double that.

And yes they do make firewire hard drives. They also have eSATA hard drives, so if you want an external hard drive that isn't limited by USB 2.0 speeds, get an eSATA drive.

Very true.

EDIT: Also, they've already got motherboards with it on the market: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128410&cm_re=USB_3.0-_-13-128-410-_-Product