Lightpeak May Replace USB 3.0 in 2011

I doubt it. USB is a household name and everyone knows what it is and what it looks like. It would be very hard for a new interface like Lightpeak to replace USB. Unless they name it USB 4.0 or something.

 

Being familiar with something does not make it a success (nor is it a 'household name' - unless the we're talking about a household of nerds ).

Similarly, the naming is not what would hold it back either (iPAD is a perfect example).

For LP to replace USB it needs to do it transparently to the user - and I think that is exactly what is going to happen. As stated, LP can emulate any type of connection - when it does (reliably and economically), all future connections will be native LP tech - and, goodbye USB, Firewire, eSATA, Serial Ports, proprietary docking stations, parallel ports and PCMCIA, CardBus and ExpressCard slots (finally).

 

I agree with you for the most part tiller. But the first step is definately usb. I can see in a matter of 2 years it'll be replaced with LP if intel and a few companies push it. I can't wait for that to happen because these current "mainstream" buses suck. I can't wiat until USB3.0 and LP become standard. I am so tired of a terrible 30MBps

EDIT: Oh and imagine a single universial adapter I can plug anything and everything in a single port. monitors tv's hardrives EVERYTHING! I would love for that to happen. No more converters or buying a different part because your current one doesn't have the same adapter

 

I believe you can get SATA Express Card for reasonable price if you want faster speed.

 

how does that fix anything? do all products have eSATA ports? no

 

do all products support USB 3.0 ? no.

Just get an enclosure that supports eSATA, is that so difficult ?

 

you honestly don't listen. I was making a statement that i can't wait for USB 3.0 or something like LP to be standardize....so i don't have to bother with convertors buying this prodoct over this one because it has the right adapter. I already use eSATA because USB 2.0 sucks terribly. I already am dealing with buying all sorts of stupid garbage because so many things come with slow interfaces. Do you understand now or do i need to repeat myself what a third time?....

EDIT: Also buying an adapter with eSATA is more expensive than these stream lined models with usb2.0. I got a 2TB drive for 90 bucks...can i build a 2TB eith eSATA for 90 bucks...hell no

EDIT:Now think of everything have the same adapter and the adpater having "limitless" speed. Now that'll save alot of effort and money

 

I don't know where you get an external USB 2.0 2TB HDD, I can see that a Vantec enclosure + a seagate/WDC 2TB hardware in the range of 130-140(mainly for the enclosure).

And no I still don't understand what you want to say. From what I have seen, the 'ready to go' USB 2.0 drive which I assume is what you mean by 'standardized' is more expensive than what I can get with a enclosure + OEM drive.

 

i got the WD element from newegg for 90 bucks. it was also 90 bucks on amazon. You can't get a decent eSATA external with a 2TB hardrive cheaper than a usb 2.0 one. Than on top of that it can't be plugged into every single computer. like usb 2.0. So again i can't wait for the day that a decent or good interface to be standardized. USB 2.0 was slow when it came out and is now a complete joke.

 

DCMAKER,

I don't want USB3 to succeed - it will just be one additional port to try to match to whatever you want to connect.

I wish LP was forced on everybody like Vista was. That will make everybody cry and whine that they have to 'upgrade' everything (after about a decade!) but then after half a year or so, everything will be like Win7x64u - it will just work!

And the best part? There will be no reason to change again for the next couple of decades or more (if they can eventually hit the speeds with LP that they're claiming they can: ~100GB/s).

I don't want a 'stepping' stone with USB3 - I want a 'jump' to the future now.

 

Buy.com's been pushing a 2 TB Fantom eSATA/USB2.0 (desktop) external drive for $99.99 for a couple months now. I don't know how decent it might be, though. And USB2.0 was a significant advance over 1.1 when it came out, and was quite fast. Of course, it didn't have nearly as much competition at the time (USB 2.0 was released in 2000, eSATA wasn't standardized until 2004).

 

Trust me i want LP to be standardized as much if not more than you but all i am saying is i wanted it to be standardized and have a single universal port. I am tired of eSATA usb 2.0 usb 3.0 firewire Ethernet and whatever else there is.

 

The problem is that not even USB is standardized - in any way, shape or form.

See:
Google Image Result for http://www.l-com.com/images/usb_connectors.jpg


See what I mean?

Sometimes we just have to clean house; throw everything away, start fresh, lean, mean and most important; 'optimally'.

Haven't we learned anything over the last few decades of doing this stuff?

 

usb is by far standardized. it may have a 3 different sizes for the size of devices it may be in but it's still standardized.

 

What are you going on about? USB3 is backwards compatible. It's not "another port to worry about". That's like complaining that hdmi 1.4 is somehow inconveniencing you. I guess someone should have made the "all in one master port" right at the dawn of the computer age so we didn't have to worry about all these ports confusing us. Today 99% of computer peripherals that use connectors are some variant of USB. Esata is a fringe port that is virtually unknown to the average consumer and when it's found on a laptop it's usually a combo usb/esata port. Then we move to firewire. This is also a fringe port today. It hardly ever gets used by the average consumer unless they have a video camera and even then an older one since many now connect with usb or record to sd cards. For this reason it has mostly been phased out of laptops. So what the hell are you complaining about again? USB is the de facto standard port today. Lightpeak sounds great but it's not the second coming.

 

DCMAKER, you're joking right? 3 different sizes is not the problem:

See:
Google Image Result for http://img.diytrade.com/cdimg/335553/5716840/0/1208827503/USB_connector__1-3.jpg



This is not standardization in my books.


coreshooter,

I don't want 'backward compatible' - I want future compatible. This is the time to do this. Now.

And about 'average consumers'? Who cares about them - they're not driving technology, nor depending on it for their livelyhood like professionals do.

 

This one caught me by surprise. How can they be selling a drive with enclosure (and I assume the power supply as well and other things like packaging) at a lower price than their own OEM bare drive ?

 

Because the OEM bare drive is 'overpriced'?

 

That usually doesn't happen in this industry and why would WDC do that ?

A+B < A ?

If the OEM is overpriced and the market(much bigger than the element market) still accepts it, why not price the 'consumer' line higher as that usually is even an easier target to extract money from ?

 

i haven't even seen most of those before. I only remember seeing 3 ports regular mini and micro...forgive me making up names because i have forgot their actual names. Also a lot of those looked like the same connector minus the opposite end where the internal side is connected was different

 

Don't forget to include graphic cards and all that SD cards crap etc. and maybe even a boxed CPU.

 

I bet lightpeak won't oust usb .. ivy bridge is more or less a year away and still no major announcements from peripherals manufacturers for lightpeak products, particularly harddrive/monitor manufacturers where the momentum would have to come from.

My money is on UWB (wireless usb or some other variant), that will be the death knell of USB, not lightpeak.

 

wireless usb? please that'll be terrible slow compared to anything else.

 

if bluetooth was taken serious you guys would not be crying about how slow wireless is
bluetooth 4 was just accepted a couple weeks ago but even the lastes notebook barely use 2.1, 2.0 if unlucky and 2.1+EDR if extremely lucky

 

my dad used to work for CSR, which is one of 2 major bluetooth manufactures. I would say CSR is better than broadcom from my time of watching my dad work. Also bluetooth will never have the capable speed of LP or anything close. It is just not possible and then you get the whole interference stuff on top of that.

EDIT: don't get me wrong bluetooth 4.0 will be awesome. They even finally addressed the whole power hungriness but still no where near as good as LP or anything of that nature.

2.1 EDR is fairly common now. But nothing uses 3.0 and that has been out for a while. The extra 50 cent or a dollar a chip is just too much i guess. I can ask my dad what's the price of the chips if you want. He was CSR global account manager for several years until he got laid off. I even interned there for a couple weeks and got to check out their head quarters and meet their CEO and be in the yearly strategy briefs, which i technically really shouldn't have been since it was big hush hush meetings They also had a hot secretary ^^

 

it will never be as fast as a good old cable but the ratio could be similar to that of wireles vs wired network aka around 1/3

at that speed it could be good enough for most of your every day task

the price would be interesting to know and if there is any other draw back why it could not have been implemented yet

 

i think my dad is in japan right now but i'll give him a call and make a separate post if i remember. just keep pming me to remember to ask him. Not too sure how much he cna tell me because i know some of it he is legally bonded to keep secret. When i interned i had to sign a pile of papers.

 

probably .. but 0 wires is better than 10 different wires, or 10 of the same wire too. once you have enough bandwidth, why complain?

in any case, if lightpeak does replace usb eventually, I wouldnt expect that to happen until at least 2 years after the first lightpeak monitors and hard drives start coming down the pipe.

I'm not saying it isnt better than usb, especially for hard drives which might realistically go up to 10gbps and still people caring about the bandwidth -- its like the riddle about if some tree falls in a forest. if lightpeak comes to intel and noone is there, will it make a standard, or will it just fall? ^^

 

agreed but if it does show wide acceptance in a single year it should be widely used. granted it'll take a couple-few years but the first year is key to judge how its excepted

 

Anticipating 'Light Peak' tech from Intel, Apple

LOL:

 

You remind me of that movie with Adam Sandler with the remote control?

Unless you have a crystal ball that's a highly unlike requirement. Besides, ten year is a very reasonable amount of time for a new/upgraded standard.

Huh?

 

I have one of these drives, well the earlier non green varient, and it has performed flawlessly, been on 24x7 for the past year or so. I purchased it because it had eSATA (and so does my Revo1600 HTPC its connected to) and it was about the same price as any other 2TB drive at the time. Anyway in my usage I can not tell the difference between eSATA and USB2 (nor would I be able to with USB3 or LP). The data I write to that drive via another bottleneck (network connection) the data I read from that drive does not need to be read at anything quicker than USB2 speeds anyway.

The advantage of LP is the ability to use high bandwidth devices (fast storage devices or digital multimedia ouput) but both of those bases are covered already, HDMI takes care of one and eSATA the other.

 

Are you changing your mind, then, Krane? As I remember several "notebook upgradability" threads where you argue just the opposite (that everything should be backwards and forwards compatible and the "industry" should make it so).

 

Light Peak Explained

 

LP isn't really going to start rolling till 2012, and won't hit maintstream till 2013. USB 3 got started last year and you see where things are only finally getting going now. LP isn't even YET in a card you can buy for a desktop, so it's still a lab baby really. Nice in theory, but USB 3 will all over the place in 2011, making a 2 year lead on LP.

LP represents more of a "what comes after USB 3" rather than something to supplant USB 3. After LP gets out of the lab you still have a whole bunch of testing to do on all devices to insure compatibility before they can go to mass manufacturing. LP really is not a 2011 technology. But it will have a place in machines in the future.

 

Aagggghhh! Talk about a totalitarian regime. Thank god no one elected you to high places.

In any event, LP will not replace USB; and it has no intentions to. Rather, it is a system intended to compliment USB as well as other ports that may become available.

Not even LP would give you that. LP may promise faster tranfer speeds than USB 3.0, but not even it would give you a 100GB/s speed right out of the gate. All manufacturers know how to " meter" their technology, and Intel is no different.

You are mistaken. The upgradeable notebook does not interfere with my philosophy. Rather, it is the intended direction I always wanted it to take.

 

They are for different things, the key advantage of USB is it can supply power so usually is for single device. LP is more like extended interconnect where it has huge throughput potential (100Gbps and who knows how many lambda they can add in the future to add more via the same optical wire).

 

Then why were you arguing against future compatibility? If it's not going to be compatible in the future, you can't upgrade.

 

LP can provide power... and LP will replace USB...

 

You mean in the form like eSATAp ? As I don't quite understand how one can effectively supply power over fiber optic cable.

 

if im not wrong light peak cables will have copper wire running alongside with the optic fiber, providing power to the other end of the device

 

After Lightpeak we'll have Ludicrouspeak.

 

You're not wrong.

Yes and no! The Intel spokesman said these would operate in tandem.

 

so are we going to have different kind of light peak cables ? As one advantage of optical fiber is that it can be much longer than copper wire.

 

I think actually the first gen lightpeak is copper, not optic cable -- ie, no optic cable at all, anywhere. The second gen, which doubles to 20GBps, might switch over to optic

 

really ? that would be very strange as I can't see how it is related to 'light'

 

Intel: Light Peak is ready for implementation, but it's built on copper

 

Intel unveils Thunderbolt data transfer tech

 

It's going to be in the new mac

New MacBook Pros Gain Thunderbolt, Goes AMD

 

Lol...
Well, either way, Lightpeak tech sounds promising as a replacement for USB.
Good thing I decided to keep my current lappie until Lightpeak is integrated into new laptops.
So I guess my next purchase will happen sometime in 2012.