USB 3.0: The Means To Enable Lightning Fast Data Transfer

In the early 1990’s when personal computers made their presence felt and Microsoft bulldozed the PC market with its Windows series of OS, data transfer was not an easy job. In case of external devices the scenario was tougher. Legacy interfaces like parallel and serial ports were commonplace in the PCs of that time. Floppy disks and tape drives were the means for data storage.

However, after the advent of the optical media and USB interface data transfer became easier and faster. USB, which stands for Universal serial Bus, has simplified the task of data transfer for the users who are not technically inclined.

USB brought the concept of plug and play and freed the users from the need to configure external devices and load drivers. The joy of plugging in a tiny sized device and copying data in minutes was unprecedented before the arrival of the USB interface. However, computer hardware undergoes technological updates pretty fast. Within a few years of its inception, USB has undergone some revisions. The first version of USB known as USB v 1.1 supported data transfer rates up to 12 MBps. In the second version the theoretical transfer speed was stepped up to 480 MBps. However, due to various other factors like hard disk spinning speed and variation of Memory frequencies the limit can not be reached in the majority of cases.

Those who need to carry gigabytes of data and need computing on the move have reason to rejoice. The next version of USB, named USB version 3.0 is set to make its debut in mid 2010. At the 2007 Intel Developer Forum talks of USB 3.0 were made public for the first time. The USB-IF, an entity that manages USB specifications confirmed making its final specification.

So what’s new in the USB 3.0 standard? To begin with, USB 3 enabled devices will feature new Super Speed bus. It has a theoretical data transfer rate of 5Gbps. The fact that it is full duplex will also benefit the users. Its improved power management will also help laptop users extract the most out of the battery.

It is being said that the latest OS of Microsoft, Windows 7, will support USB 3.0 standard. However, the drivers are still under development. A majority of the mainstream computer users have various types of USB 2 devices like pen drive, external hard drive etc. They can not get the speed of USB 3.0 with existing USB 2.0 data cables. To achieve the speed benefit of USB 3 a person needs to use USB 3.0 device, USB 3.0 cable as well as USB 3.0 receptor port. If any of the above is only USB 2 compliant, the speed will fall to the rates of USB 2. Industry experts are of the view that it will surpass the existing fast standards like Firewire and e SATA.

Though large scale production of USB 3 enabled devices will start in next year, some manufacturers like NEC and Freecom have already announced their products supporting the standard. Henceforth, data transfer will be a lot more easier and faster. For more information please click here

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