Computer Related > USB 3 - worthwhile?	Computing Issues
Thread Author: lancara	Replies: 36

Wed 30 Nov 11 15:07   USB 3 - worthwhile? - lancara

Starting to put together the spec. for a new laptop. Is USB 3 worthwhile? Do a reasonable amount of saving/reading large files. The stickers say "x10"- is this computerese for "up to x10"? Anybody have experience with this - are saving times noticeably different? Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 30 Nov 11 15:40   USB 3 - worthwhile? - rtj70

USB 3 is certainly faster. But you will need USB 3 peripherals. An external hard drive is one item you'd notice a speed up but that external drive need to be USB 3 too. I'd go for USB3 because it is future proofing your laptop. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 30 Nov 11 15:41   USB 3 - worthwhile? - RattleandSmoke

I always pay a bit more for USB 3.0 motherboards when building PCs for clients. It future proofs it. A typical PC can still last five years, in three years time USB 3 will be the norm. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 30 Nov 11 15:47   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Zero

You need USB 3 peripherals to plug into it, if they are all USB 2 ones, you wont see a difference. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 30 Nov 11 16:08   USB 3 - worthwhile? - ....

As other's have said, if it's on offer include it but it would not be the primary consideration for my new hardware. How long do you typically keep a laptop for ? We seem to go through them at the rate of about one every two years. PC's last us around ten years. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 30 Nov 11 16:42   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Hard Cheese

USB3.0 is certainly worthwhile, it is around 10 x faster than USB2.0 in data transfer terms being on a par with e-Sata and faster than Firewire 800 in that regard. Apple have announced that they will ship USB3.0 systems which should mean that USB prevails over Thunderbolt in the Apple realm because it has a massive advantage in that it provides power, in the future i-Pods etc will be able to charge via USB3.0 and sync with i-Tunes in no time. I have a USB 3.0 laptop and have timed a 300mb file copied onto a USB3.0 RAID and it takes less than 3 seconds, additionally I have found that reading and writing from USB memory sticks is a lot faster even if they claim to be USB2.0 standard. USB3.0 would be a must for me in any new computer purchase. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 30 Nov 11 16:53   USB 3 - worthwhile? - spamcan61

>> >> USB3.0 is certainly worthwhile, it is around 10 x faster than USB2.0 in data transfer >> terms being on a par with e-Sata and faster than Firewire 800 in that regard. >> >> additionally I have found that reading >> and writing from USB memory sticks is a lot faster even if they claim to >> be USB2.0 standard. >> Sounds quite likely, practical USB2 transfer speeds ranged form 12 to 200 Mbs, so a computer towards the bottom end of that range would limit the speed of a fast stick for example. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 30 Nov 11 17:06   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Zero

>> USB3.0 would be a must for me in any new computer purchase. Wouldnt be a deal breaker for me. USB speed is not a user interactive intensive issue. Video and audio streams off USB 2 devices fast enough not to be noticed as an issue. The only thing where USB3 is useful is bulk data movement, and for that you can be doing something else on the system (like browsing) while it works away in the background. There are gazzilion of devices out there (like iphones and ipods ) that are not USB3 devices. So not a tip top requirement for me. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 30 Nov 11 17:06   USB 3 - worthwhile? - rtj70

>> Apple have announced that they will ship USB3.0 systems which should mean that USB >> prevails over Thunderbolt in the Apple realm because it has a massive advantage in that it >> provides power, in the future i-Pods etc will be able to charge via USB3.0 and sync with i- >> Tunes in no time. They will offer USB3 and Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt has higher bandwidth. Over a single Thunderbolt cable you can have DisplayPort, USB, Ethernet, power etc. In the next Apple update however, it will be easy (if the Intel chipsets support it) to have USB3. Last edited by: rtj70 on Wed 30 Nov 11 at 17:07 Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 30 Nov 11 17:40   USB 3 - worthwhile? - RattleandSmoke

When I built my Sandybridge back in the summer USB 3.0 was a must. I have no USB 3 devices at all, but in the future I may well do, and I need to keep as much PCI/PCI E ports free as possible. Reply to this message | Report message

Wed 30 Nov 11 17:53   USB 3 - worthwhile? - rtj70

Which is why longer term Thunderbolt is very interesting. You have enough bandwidth to run several PCI Express devices over the interface. So you could say have a laptop and for gaming connect a faster PCI Express GPU in a box. And Thunderbolt was always meant to be optical at first but they released it as an electrical solution. Optical is still there for the future. Reply to this message | Report message

Thu 1 Dec 11 10:31   USB 3 - worthwhile? - lancara

Thanks everybody. After a wander round my local PC World-equivalent, a USB 3 port seems to be included on most of the latest laptops anyway. As an aside, I noted that desktop prices seemed to have increased whilst laptop prices have decreased. Now very little in it with almost comparable specs. Might be an opportunity to eliminate a few wires. Reply to this message | Report message

Thu 1 Dec 11 11:06   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Iffy

A solid state drive might be something else to look out for. Faster, more reliable, enough capacity for most home users. Quite dear at the moment, but one day all drives will be made this way - I predict. Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 17:14   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Zero

>> A solid state drive might be something else to look out for. >> >> Faster, more reliable, enough capacity for most home users. >> >> Quite dear at the moment, but one day all drives will be made this way >> - I predict. You predict? We predicted that for you several aeons back. You sound like the crone on blackadder. Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 17:49   USB 3 - worthwhile? - lancara

512GB SSD for £532.48...perhaps next year! Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 18:14   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Iffy

128Gb SSD for about £170 from Crucial. www.crucial.com/uk/store/listmodule/SSD/~131072~/list.html Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 18:40   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Hard Cheese

>> A solid state drive might be something else to look out for. >> >> Faster, more reliable, enough capacity for most home users. >> Faster yes, more reliable no, I have a client who makes high end RAID data storage systems, the regularly test SSDs though would endorse there use yet. Limited read/write cycles and too many bad sectors. Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 20:01   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Zero

Oh dear not this again. I am sure that EMC, a much more successful and much larger - the worlds largest maker of High end large scale storage arrays - know what they are talking when they offer SSD arrays. Last edited by: Zero on Fri 2 Dec 11 at 20:03 Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 20:09   USB 3 - worthwhile? - RattleandSmoke

Thinks have improved massively in the past few years although it is a mistake to think that SSD's are bullet proof because they can and will fail eventually. Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 20:12   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Zero

As do ordinary disks. Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 20:19   USB 3 - worthwhile? - RattleandSmoke

Indeed they just wear out in different ways. The wear and tear of an SSD should be a lot more predictable. Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 20:22   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Zero

and they break, in a myriad of ways. Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 21:42   USB 3 - worthwhile? - rtj70

Is it not true when an SSD fails it will still be readable if it's because of too many write cycles. When a hard drive goes... usually costly to recover data. Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 22:49   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Hard Cheese

>> Oh dear not this again. >> There is strong science behind it, guys involved at CERN etc. Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 22:51   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Zero

>> >> Oh dear not this again. >> >> >> >> There is strong science behind it, guys involved at CERN etc. Well the top 5 makers, by sales volume in dollars, all sell SSD, are they all wrong? Your outfit are not in the top 5 BTW. One wonders why Last edited by: Zero on Fri 2 Dec 11 at 22:54 Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 23:28   USB 3 - worthwhile? - rtj70

There my be issues with long term reliability of SSDs (I'm not saying that) but they offer performance advantages. Companies will therefore use them and the right people involved will understand these limitations etc. Cheddar's example is a company that is choosing to lose business. Bad decision. Give customers the choice. As Z says, the big players are making lots of money selling SSD storage. Some of it will be in more complex scenarios with tiered storage. So going on the limited knowledge I have of forum members... Zero worked for a large IT integrator for decades and knows IT inside out. And builds systems (high-end ones) for people these days. I work in IT too. Cheddar works in....? All I know he has mentioned photography. I am just curious Cheddar on your experience in IT in general at this sort of level. Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 2 Dec 11 at 23:31 Reply to this message | Report message

Fri 2 Dec 11 23:47   USB 3 - worthwhile? - rtj70

And this was a USB3 thread. :-) Cheddar should also explain how USB3 is better than Thunderbolt. He's not yet. Apple's new Thunderbolt 27" display provides a daisy chain connection for other Thunderbolt devices but also a few USB2 ports, webcam, speakers/mic, Gigabit Ethernet, the display itself and Firewire 800. All over the Thunderbolt connection. Does USB3 support that? And allow you to connect another set of Thunderbolt devices like another display or storage? Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 2 Dec 11 at 23:51 Reply to this message | Report message

Sat 3 Dec 11 00:19   USB 3 - worthwhile? - rtj70

A quick check and bandwidth for USB3 is 5Gbit/s which is good. Thunderbolt in it's current format is 20Gb/s. Thunderbolt was originally going to be optical (100Gb/s) and it still might. That was called Light Peak or similar. Reply to this message | Report message

Sat 3 Dec 11 03:28   USB 3 - worthwhile? - RattleandSmoke

Lets put it this way if I had to sell an ultra reliable storage and cost was not an option then I would be using SSDs rather than hard drives. However at the moment SSDs are still expensive. When I have offered such reliable domestic solutions my clients always choose RAID mirror over a single SSD. The only SSD I have is on my netbook running Lubuntu and it does make a big difference, my Atom netbook boots in seconds and I am amazed SSDs in netbooks went out of fashion in favour of hard drives. A lot of my work now involves making netbooks with hard drives actually work. I did think about getting an SSD for my main I3 2100 system but it boots up in less than a 40 seconds as it is, and everything loads almost instantly so for my use I am not sure what benefit I would get out of an SSD other than booting maybe 20 seconds quicker. I have nothing against SSDs at all and I do believe they last longer than traditional hard drives, but at the moment they are just too expensive for domestic storage. Reply to this message | Report message

Sat 3 Dec 11 09:35   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Iffy

...The only SSD I have is on my netbook... I see Crucial do a 64Gb SSD for about £90 which should fit my netbook. Assuming Windows doesn't suck up much more than half of that, 64Gb would be plenty for me. Might be worth thinking about. Reply to this message | Report message

Sat 3 Dec 11 09:46   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Zero

It should be pointed out you can also buy Hybride drives, a mix of SSD and Traditional drive on a single Sata interface. It is in effect a single staged drive. With stuff that needs fast access on the faster SSD - the drive electronics and algorithms doing all the smart thinking. Reply to this message | Report message

Sat 3 Dec 11 10:12   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Hard Cheese

>> >> Cheddar should also explain how USB3 is better than Thunderbolt. He's not yet. >> Thunderbolt does not provide power so is no good for portable external h/ds, charging iPods etc, USB3.0 is truly universal and cross platform. Reply to this message | Report message

Sat 3 Dec 11 10:24   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Zero

>> Thunderbolt does not provide power so is no good for portable external h/ds, charging iPods >> etc, USB3.0 is truly universal and cross platform. Thunderbolt and USB3 are two different animals and should not be compared. USB has broken out of the PC only market, and is rapidly becoming a universal (across many appliances) power and data interface. Its available in your car radio for example, its on my Dab radio. my TV, etc etc. Thunderbolt is essentially a computer bus extension/interface and there it will remain as it needs far too much PC specific architecture to migrate elsewhere. In fact I doubt it will migrate out of the mac world, remaining as a niche in that market. Reply to this message | Report message

Sat 3 Dec 11 10:06   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Hard Cheese

>> Cheddar's example is a company that is choosing to lose business. Bad decision. Give customers >> the choice. >> Its specialist niche business rtj, your comment is like saying that Jaguar are losing business because they dont make 1.0 superminis? >> Cheddar works in....?>> l Marketing. Reply to this message | Report message

Sat 3 Dec 11 09:59   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Hard Cheese

>> >> >> Oh dear not this again. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> There is strong science behind it, guys involved at CERN etc. >> >> Well the top 5 makers, by sales volume in dollars, all sell SSD, are they >> all wrong? Your outfit are not in the top 5 BTW. >> >> One wonders why >> High value niche rather than enterprise solutions. Reply to this message | Report message

Sat 3 Dec 11 10:09   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Zero

They can sell many of them. I'll stick by what the top 5 makers do. Volume experience counts in my book. Last edited by: Zero on Sat 3 Dec 11 at 10:10 Reply to this message | Report message

Sat 3 Dec 11 10:18   USB 3 - worthwhile? - Zero

>> They can sell many of them. >> I'll stick by what the top 5 makers do. Volume experience counts in my book. I meant of course "cant" as in "cant sell many of them" Reply to this message | Report message