USB 3.0 capable devices?

[Martin]

Hey there, has been a long time since I wrote or reply in this forums, work keeping me away for a few weeks.

Today reading at a photography magazine I found an article (actually an ad) in which a Western Digital External Hard Drive claims to be the usb 3.0. Do we already have usb3.0 capable devices? like mobos an other stuff?

I do here attach the scanned ad, not the best quality but is readable I guess

 

[valtonray]

yes we do have USB 3.0 devices and motherboards although they are still not common

 

[Martin]

thanks, for the answer , did not know we already had this devices, I guess is coming, read the whole magazine, found 3 other devices claiming theyre usb3.0

 

[pparks1]

While the interface is USB...if the hard drive isn't up to par it's not going to come close to advertised speeds. It's not going to be any better than eSATA.

 

[patio]

e-SATA 300mbs...
USB 3.0 400mbs +

 

[whs]

There is no need to jump on the bandwagon. As long as the disks do not get any faster, the data transfer rate is irrelevant. Just look how fast your internal disk transfers data (e.g. with HD Tune), and you get an idea. And that disk is attached to a 3Gbit bus.

 

[valtonray]

well it could have an SATA III drive, but there are only a few models of those available on the market right now.

 

[Phone Man]

I believe the WD drive comes with a PCIe to USB 3.0 card so it will work on older motherboards. MSI and ASUS both have boards with USB 3.0 via an added chip.

 

[karlsnooks]

saw a mention somewhere that some new Lenovo laptops have built-in USB 3.0 capabiliity.

My prediction that soon all newly released laptops/netbooks/desktops will have usb 3.0. usb 3.0 is the future.

karl

 

[Zepher]

I have one here and it came with a PCI-E USB 3.0 card.

 

[Martin]

Nice Zepher, how much did it cost and where did you get it?

 

[Zepher]

$149 from Amazon.com. It belongs to a friend of mine. I am copying some data files for him.
I installed the USB 3.0 card in his PC and will do some more tests when I bring it back.

 

[kronckew]

i have a cheap usb2 iomega external 500gb hdd that was sharing bandwidth with two usb memory sticks and my wireless keyboard/mouse and wireless network card. i decided to add a usb card to give me more bandwidth, i went online to maplin (a parts store chain kinda like radio shack) and found the local branch had a 2-port usb3 pci-e card in stock, i figured i might as well splurge and spend the extra £10 for it rather than a usb2 one. went to maplin to pick it up, staff insisted they did not have one and they were not out yet. had them look it up, and lo and behold, they in fact had one. they located it and i took the prize home. works fine, usb sticks and the hdd work fine at usb2 speed, but with full speed. not seen any usb3 client devices here yet...

 

[Zepher]

i have a cheap usb2 iomega external 500gb hdd that was sharing bandwidth with two usb memory sticks and my wireless keyboard/mouse and wireless network card. i decided to add a usb card to give me more bandwidth, i went online to maplin (a parts store chain kinda like radio shack) and found the local branch had a 2-port usb3 pci-e card in stock, i figured i might as well splurge and spend the extra £10 for it rather than a usb2 one. went to maplin to pick it up, staff insisted they did not have one and they were not out yet. had them look it up, and lo and behold, they in fact had one. they located it and i took the prize home. works fine, usb sticks and the hdd work fine at usb2 speed, but with full speed. not seen any usb3 client devices here yet...

Do they sell this one over there for a decent price?
Newegg.com - ASUS Model U3S6 USB 3.0 & SATA 6Gb/s Add-on card - Motherboard Accessories
This one has 2 USB 3.0 and 2 SATA 6Gb/s

 

[madtownidiot]

The speed of an external HDD is still limited by the read/write speed of the HDD itself. Even USB 2.0 transfers data faster than a mechanical HDD is capable of, so a USB 3.0 external HDD is not going to be any faster than a USB 2.0 external HDD

 

[Zepher]

The speed of an external HDD is still limited by the read/write speed of the HDD itself. Even USB 2.0 transfers data faster than a mechanical HDD is capable of, so a USB 3.0 external HDD is not going to be any faster than a USB 2.0 external HDD

Mech Drives can transfer over 100MB/s, which is faster than USB2 2.0

 

[madtownidiot]

The speed of an external HDD is still limited by the read/write speed of the HDD itself. Even USB 2.0 transfers data faster than a mechanical HDD is capable of, so a USB 3.0 external HDD is not going to be any faster than a USB 2.0 external HDD

Mech Drives can transfer over 100MB/s, which is faster than USB2 2.0

they can transfer over 100MB/s, in short bursts, but for larger file transfer even a faster HDD will only maintain 30-40 MB/s

 

[Zepher]

The speed of an external HDD is still limited by the read/write speed of the HDD itself. Even USB 2.0 transfers data faster than a mechanical HDD is capable of, so a USB 3.0 external HDD is not going to be any faster than a USB 2.0 external HDD

Mech Drives can transfer over 100MB/s, which is faster than USB2 2.0

they can transfer over 100MB/s, in short bursts, but for larger file transfer even a faster HDD will only maintain 30-40 MB/s

Are these above average then?

 

[madtownidiot]

Are these above average then?

That's about average for the benchmark test, which isn't exactly accurate for practical purposes. Moving a folder that has files scattered all over the HDD, which is pretty common with HDDs that have been defragmented regularly, takes a little longer and I think is a more accurate representation of how fast a HDD is. Perhaps it isn't actually reading any slower, just takes a little longer to seek, but I've never gotten a HDD to maintain read/write speeds over 60MB/s (480 Mb/sec) for anything over a few seconds once it gets to the smaller files that are being moved. Maybe I'm wrong, but either way, I don't care that much. It's not that important

 

[Dave76]

You can find more of them available every week. :huh:

These have 2 USB 3.0 and 2 SATA 6Gb/s, 17 mobos.

Good to future proof when you can