I really wonder why eSATA is not the preferred port to use for external hard drives, even with SS USB, people are still missing the other technical functions of modern hard drives such as NCQ, SMART, powering down when not in use, etc. Sure, you might say that eSATA has no power, but that can be solved by a hybrid connector with USB for power and eSATA for data.

I for one would love to have eSATA ports become more common in laptops and notebooks.

At newegg, there are already motherboards with USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s

Here some examples

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128412&cm_...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131614&cm_...

I got a big dick.

So yeah, why no mention of Firewire in the entire article ?!

Firewire 800 has been around for a while now and while Firewire 400 was already killing USB 2.0 in terms of real performance and CPU usage, Firewire 800 was simply wiping the floor with USB 2.0.

Why no mention at all ? Firewire can provide external power on the same cable capable of providing enough juice to power on that 3.5" HD. Can USB 3.0 do that ? (i'm not trying to be a smartass here, i'm just wondering if version 3 got a little power boost in that regard)

Adi

Ah the ole "SS"....

http://www.collectormotors.com/carsoldpix/1969CamaroSS.jpg

Did I miss something? Why not plug USB2.0 devices/cables into the USB 3 port, to see if there is any difference and/or performance advantage? This is likely the most common scenario for most users for the next few years...

Why wasn't an SSD used for testing purposes rather than the mechanical HD?

A mechanical HD just does not stress the interface enough to see a difference big between e-SATA or USB 3.0.

If you're without USB external storage devices, or you only back up a few gig of precious family photos, tax statements, etc. USB 2.0 is perfectly fine.

I look at USB in my house, many mice, some KB's, web-cams, TV adapter. No USB external HDD at all.

USB 3.0 = incremental adoption over time, not a game changer.

I prefer plug and receptacle, but am also forced to use plug and jack, depending on industry and application. #56, I would want more than your word on this.

You missed something pretty big!

The connectors are different.

USB3.0 data transfer also goes both way... right?... so it is actually 20x faster than previous gen????

$30 buck is alot to me... morely when converted to my currency... thankfully, gigabyte adds it to their mobos FOC...

Firewire was the right idea, in my opinion.

Firewire 400 beats USB 2 all the time.

USB was good for low bandwidth things though - keyboards, mice, even scanners, printers and the like. I approve of a single socket type for multiple bits of hardware.

USB3 does have the bandwidth finally, and beats Firewire 800 even. Firewire 800 was a failure - a mere doubling of bandwidth. Going straight to Firewire 1600 would have been far more prudent. I think that Firewire stagnated and never recovered though.

eSATA isn't quite right, but at least it is fast. It should have included power, and more power than USB at that.

How long until Lightpeak makes this irrelevant? Wouldn't it be nice to replace everything with just one cable?

This reminds me of the frustration I had when picking a motherboard. The board I went with isn't even optimal. The issue being... slot selection.

It seems a bit short sighted that manufacturers are releasing new motherboards targeted at gamers and enthusiasts that are still the majority PCI outside of the PCIe x16 slot.

What I would personally like to see is a motherboard with entirely physical PCIe x16 slots and then one PCI slot. I don't expect all of those PCIe slots to also be electrically x16, I just want them to be fine and capable of holding a x1, x4 or x8 card. Hell, it would be even greater if they all dynamically gave up their links or let me assign them in BIOS.

PCIe... so far a real disappointment.

Oh about USB 3.0... my externals want it.

When USB 2.0 came in it was good, as USB 1.0 was totally crap for storage.
USB 2.0 is at least usable for backup and as a slow but reliable storage solution. The smart thing was that they implemented the same connectors and backwards compatibility. USB 2 is still the most universal. I hate it cause it is so slow. But it is easy and works for Mr Average user.

USB 3.0 will not have such an easy road in to common use if we have to throw away all our old stuff, which is serving us ok. It will join the ranks of half baked specialist use such as FW, ESATA.

We need a fast solution to all digital transfers. One plug that does it all. A standard that can handle all digital connections. In audio, video, phones and computers.

Die in a fire, firewire. Die, die, die, and never come back, ever.

Well said. Firewire was just a bad implementation from the beginning.

"a SuperSpeed B connector won't fit into a USB 2.0 B plug"

I think you meant socket, not plug.

I cannot understand why USB 3.0 uptake is not going faster. Anyone who has had to transfer large files from a computer to an external harddrive knows how painfully slow USB 2.0 and Firewire 400 are. eSATA is a nice alternative, but the cabling system sucks; I have 3 eSATA drives from 2 manufacturers, the cables do NOT want to stay in place.

I will be getting a 3.0 card and drive enclosure as soon as I can find one, even with the "half-baked" aspects of it.

I'm glad that a device can now draw 900mA. It's going to make my life a lot easier.

It's just a shame it's going to be a long time until it becomes ubiquitous.

Euh current SSDs are capped by SATA 3G speeds, if you remove that bottleneck, they can push over 300MB/s - 350MB/s.

http://www.dailytech.com/UPDATED+Micron+Announces+Worlds+First+Nati...

It seems USB3 is too little too late for external storage if 400MB/s is the practical limit. SATA 6G is coming as well so I would imagine the eSATA spec, pushing 500MB/s, is more ideal. That's a little more breathing room.

Of course, only an issue if one would like to wring every ounce of performance out of their SSD, noticeable or not.

The USB is a jack of all trades. Usable for anything, excels at nothing. I'd rather have 1394c ports than USB3. Autoconfiguring firewire/ethernet in one RJ-45. Cables cheap and plentiful.
But if it's more bandwidth that you need, then optical link is THE way to go. My old thicker-that-thumb scsi cables agree!

:) Bring it on. My eSata port has been winning thus far.

Isn't USB 3.0 backwards compatible?

so why then in the benchmarks did they use the motherboard USB slot?
I would be far more interested in the USB 2.0 numbers off the new controller, although, they should be similar.

USB 3.0 won't be any good until it's standard on Apple machines...then it will be a brilliant technical innovation by Apple.

This feels like a flashback. NEC was also the first to release a USB 2.0 controller way back in 2001:
http://www.am.necel.com/news/newsdetail.html?page=10941

Yeah it'd be nice if Apple laptops had this spec. Time Machine backups or (more importantly) restores wouldn't take nearly as long.

Vantec has a PCIe x1 card coming, as well, if you don't need the SATA 6Gb ports on the ASUS card:

http://www.vantecusa.com/front/product/view_detail/406

I know you don't have the hardware for this yet, but it would be interesting to max out the card by hooking up two 6Gps SSDs and two USB 3.0 devices and see where the bottlenecks appear (that DMI interface in the P55 chipset will be the ultimate throttle for DMA ops, but I suspect other things will get in the way first as the burst bench suggests)

The market is hardly teeming with hybrid eSATA/USB storage devices, though.

Yeah -- has anybody seen any external HDs or even enclosures with the hybrid interface?

I'm sure that there are other uses for USB 3.0, but flash drives are what I actually upgrade for.

Interesting. I was hoping to see something about this; wasn't expecting it quite so soon. Good job.