How important is it, now, to get USB 3.0?

I like to speculate about the future but I'm only an amateur technophile. I'm getting a new laptop within the next few days, which of course I want to last as long as possible, and I'm wondering whether a lack of USB 3.0 should be a deal-breaker. Right now it seems as though the only USB 3.0 devices are storage media, for which the extra speed would be great, but hardly a necessity.

I'll use my laptop for a lot of things, making music, watching TV, playing games, Skype, about everything laptops are for, other than stuff which I consider "very technical" (such as hardware modifications).

So what's your opinion? Looking at the next three years or so, is USB 3.0 a must?

 

Good question, am wondering the same.
I am look forward to see how the knowledgeable people feel about this.

Personally I wouldnt call it a dealbreaker, unless you want to wait a whole while on your new notebook.

Wasnt it possible to upgrade old laptops to usb3.0 anyway? not sure

 

You can via an expresscard adapter but it's kind of useless considering you need an external power supply to provide enough juice for proper usb 3.0.

I think USB 3.0 is nice to have but not really that important to have just yet unless you're planning on shooting HD video directly to your computer or something like that.

 

I'm not that impressed with USB 2 speed and I've read a few posts that 3.0 isn't likely to live up to it's specs either. I think I'm more interested in using eSATA then USB, and 6 GBit SATA is around the corner. I'm kind of thinking that may be more interesting. For storage anyway. I have two eSata drives now but not on my notebook. I have seen these eSata/USB combo ports - they look pretty useful, and I'm more inclined to be looking for those on future notebooks.

 

I wouldn't buy a new computer without a least one superspeed port.

Regardless, of any speed advantage from other port technologies, they all pale to the product penetration and influence of USB.

 

I have to agree with Krane here...

You are buying a computer that you'll be using (or at least wanting to...) for the next 3 years and you're not spec'ing a system with all the possible external connections/ports possible?

You're fooling yourself.

If you really need a new computer in a few days, buy the cheapest system to get your work done. But know that asap, you'll be buying your 'real' system in a few months.

If you don't really need it now - wait.

Not only will you be getting the new platforms being introduced in 2011 in addition to USB3, but you should have also learned enough patience by then to allow others to find any possible problems with the new models too before you actually jump on a 'deal'.

When you're making a long term purchase like this, do not underestimate how limiting your decisions may be in just a few short months.

Contrary to what csavery said about USB2, it does live up to its claims in almost every system now available.

For me, USB3 will make transferring full, 500GB drives to my desktops even faster than even gigbyte ethernet does now. You can bet my next system(s) will have it.

 

If you need a computer now, USB 3.0 should not be a deal breaker. But once AMD releases it's Fusion based platforms and Intel releases Sandy Bridge, that is when it becomes a deal breaker.

 

I had posted this to a similar question on the use of a Express card USB converter just yesterday:

The Express card uses the PCI-e configuration, so you will see the benefit of maximum possible speed of USB 3.

Express 2 card max is 5Gb/s
USB 3 max is 4.8Gb/s
USB 2 max 480Mb/s

 

I think it should be a deal braker for those that need external disks often.

Even with ESata. While E-sata port in mine HP is fast it isn't reliable like USB. Sometimes the disk just goes away and i have to wake it up.

 

IMO USB 2.0 is fine for daily external disk use.

 

The bottleneck of external disks isn't usually the speed of usb so I wouldn't base my decision on it.

 

True, but consider that the mechanical hard disk can not even come close to these speeds.
If we connect an HHD to a build in USB 3.0 or to a Expresscard USB3.0 adapter we shouln't see any performance difference, cause the limits are in the disk itself, not in the interface.

Things are different if we speak about SSD obviously

The real "problem" of Expresscard adapter is that they are HUGE!!

 

I have never been able to get anything USB2 to go faster than about 30MB/s. Same drive on eSata gets 95MB/s. I'm not sure that 30 MB/s (approx 240 Mb/s) is less than what USB "officially" claims but certainly all the advertising claims USB2 will do 480 Mb/s and yet I have never once seen anything ever do that. Maybe they're saying in the fine print somewhere that it's 240 each direction max. But I've never seen any advertising that ever clarified that either.

This is why I tend to think that even though USB3 says 4.8 Gb/s we're probably going to see only 2.4 Gb/s.

Saying that USB isn't the limiting factor is just plain wrong. It may be that USB3 won't be limited by current drive speeds but certainly USB2 is very much the limiter. I'm sure USB3 will eventually become common and useful. As far as looking at notebooks on sale now though there are already models with eSata/USB combo ports that will go beyond the current drive limits.

Since eSata doesn't involve a controller to convert the protocol I'm fairly sure it will continue to be a better choice for native SATA hard drives.

 

USB 2 at the very beginning did not transfer at full speeds, but over time the speed of the controllers got better, to the point of reaching maximum speed. USB 3 will probably be the same.

keep in mind the last few posts are talking about the use of USB hard drives, but USB is also useful for transferring of other forms of data, like from a camera, video camera, etc... so they may be able to transfer at much higher speeds.

This is a technology that allows things to move forward, today there is not much if anything to take advantage of the new speeds. In the future there will be devices that can take advantage of the speed.

 

If you have the time to wait for USB 3 to be "built in" to the machine of your choice (all makers will get on board sooner or later), then it's a good forward thinking thing to have.

Have you ever dumped a large amount of data to a memory stick and had it take 20 min or so? Imagine that time cut by 1/2 to 2/3. It's going to be sizeably faster, not just 5-10%. ESATA is very good, but you won't see basic devices like vidcams and memory sticks that use it much. It's not for those things. But as HD becomes QuadHD in the years to come, as the amount of data we dump to a portable or backup destination gets bigger, you will eventually be hindered by USB 2.0. Already external drives operate 2-3x as fast on USB 3. ESATA matches those speeds but it has a single use and will eventually go away because of that.

You could "live" with an expresscard solution to get USB 3 into your machine. But if you can wait for it to be built in you'd be better off in the years to come.

 

In case you are referring to my previous post...
Of course i mean that USB 3.0 isn't the limiting factor!!
USB 2.0 is absolutely the main limit for transfer speed in modern HDD.

The 480mbps of usb is calculated in a theorical situation that in normal use we can never reach, so the real speed is half that limit (480mbps=60MB/s...real speed hardly reach 30).

 

Can Expresscard be gen2 and therefore 5.0Gb/s?

 

I stand corrected, as long as the chipset supports PCIe version 2.

I know the i series chipsets do support V2, have not checked to see if the core duo chipsets support V2 or not. I will edit my post.

 

It is not fine if you have to access/transfer several Mb. USB2.0 is 1/3 slower than your typical computer disk. With USB3.0 that disappears and the bottleneck starts to be the disk itself and not the transfer protocol.
Btw it will be important to choose the USB disk.

 

Transferring several GB a day isn't bad to wait a few extra minutes, at least I don't really care if it takes 5 min or 15 min. I'm sure we all wouldn't mind if everything transferred instantaneously or if your business relies on transfer times, but for most users, ATM USB 3.0 isn't a deal breaker.

 

Have you ever waited on the phone for 15 minutes? What if you could call another business that provides the same service and be done in 5 minutes! Which one would you choose?

BTW, your statement reminds me of that Comcast commercial with the Slowsky's?

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/SuSMAqvOd7I?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/SuSMAqvOd7I?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='480' height="385"></embed></object>

 

Intel have sneakily labelled the ix core series-5 chipsets as pci-e 2.0, but that only relates to power management. The ports themselves still run 1.0's 2.5Gbps speed. Need Sandy Bridge to deliver pci-e 3.0 ports which can deliver up to 8Gbps after overhead, or 4x more than current ports. DIY ViDock will zoom along nicely then which could be the reason why Intel have delayed and capped ports as long as feasibly could.

If you need fast extra storage ensure a current notebook has either an expresscard slot, USB 3.0, e-sata or an optical drive you could swap out for a caddy.

 

As I said, most consumers don't really need it to be done sooner. The part you missed is cost. Sure we'd all like the same thing done in lesser time, but it would definitely cost more at the current time since it's still rather new and hence why I don't believe it to be a dealbreaker. But sure if it's the same price, then go ahead and get it.

 

I know I saw in a spec yesterday that is was 5GT/s. But after looking at the IBEX specification it clearly shows 2.5GT/s. This is so damn frustrating. So my initial statement of an express card USB 3 card will only allow about half the full speed was correct.

 

It's a shame there's such an alphabet when it comes to equipment compatibility and efficiency. Sure, it's come a long way (and is getting better) but these industries are still not being totally honest when it comes to give the consumers what they claim. Being an educated consumer is your best hedge against spending a lot of money and not getting what you expected.

Not necessarily in that order...I hope?

 

All depends on what you use your computer for. I personally couldn't care less about transfer speeds because I have a 120GB external and a 320GB internal with 250GB free on the internal drive. I rarely even use any sort of USB storage anyway. And for the times I do, like re-ghosting my system, 5 minutes and 15 minutes are all the same to me. It's not like waiting on the phone where you must be at attention. If I were to make a call to a service center and be told that in 14 minutes 35 seconds I will receive service then I will merely put the phone on the table, walk away, do other stuff, come back after 14 minutes, and wait the 35 seconds.

 

i have two usb 3.0 ports on one of my laptops. I'm trying to find a use for them. perhaps a 100+GB usb3 flash drive.

I use eSATA for backing up and making clones of drives or making an image using acronis. Full system backups of an 80+GB drive is done in about 15 min max. Recovering from those backup images are even faster. I dont even want to begin thinking about doing that with a USB2 connection... hours (perhaps days! )

So, if you cant get a USB3.0 port, I wouldn't sweat it too much unles your iintent is to use a newer HD camera for transfering to your laptop at veyr high speeds vs using firewire or usb2.

Just be sure you have an eSATA or an ExpressCard port at the very least. They make flush mount eSATA cards so I don't know why they couldn't do the same for USB3.0 expressCards so I don't think the issue of an expresscard being bulky or sticking out is a major issue.

 

Yep, that's another brick wall where you just want to know what the manufacturers were thinking. Thankfully they moved in the right direction with the mini transmitter for mouse/keyboards. Now I can just leave mine in all the time.

 

USB 3 is a $10 part in quantity. It isn't for cost reasons that it fails to get added to designs.

Flush mounted cards will come.

Most "testing" on laptops was done with those cards that operate at half speed... Please note that when reading testing results.

In the end it's a choice. In a year or two when most devices list USB 2 only as a backward compatibility, are you going to be unhappy you missed out? If not, no worries. But most folks who come here are carefully trying to pick their laptop parts and choices based upon careful decision. And once Intel jumps on board with USB 3 and all the current products from other vendors pass compatibility testing, the spec will be everywhere. You'll live just fine with USB 2. But you'll probably be better off long term with at least 1-2 USB 3 slots in your machine. HP is offering USB 3 on many models. Dell is coming along. By the time Sandy Bridge designs come, it will be everywhere.

 

The Clevo I've ordered seems to have a mix of 2.0 and 3.0 USB ports, I can't say I'll see much of a performance difference but the new 1TB drive I picked up a few months should see faster transfer speeds at least.

If you have a choice and it's available for a reasonable price, no point in passing it up. If you can't then there's always an external solution or future upgrades that can resolve the issue satisfactorily.

 

In my view, external solution are for current owners of laptops. However, if you're in the market for a new laptop (of quality), I'd make at least one port with 3.0 a necessity.

p.s. I know not everybody needs a superspeed port, but these are the folks that can also get by without HD TV.