Fact: No USB 3.0 in Upcoming ThinkPads

Shame… so it looks like I’ll need to wait another year before buying a new ThinkPad.


From http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-features/44493-nvidia-our-nforce-chipsets-are-qbetterq-than-intels:

"We [have also] learned that Intel is postponing USB 3 introduction until 2011. With no competition in chipsets, it seems Intel has decided that innovation is not needed for USB any time soon," said Burke. "With no one to push Intel to innovate, PC enthusiasts are left with Intel chipsets and the features and performance they deliver, or lack there of."

 

There is a small chance they could use a dedicated USB 3.0 controller. It's still a probability, though a small one.

 

Fail!!!!!!!!!!

 

I feel like Intel decided to do this in order to keep USB3 from becoming too established so that their pet project Light Peak will have a fighting chance at being adopted when it finally hits the market, possibly at the behest of Apple.

Anyone have any insight into this?

 

Honestly nothing new here, USB 3.0 has been discussed a lot more in the hardware forum. The major players (Intel, nVidia, WD, etc.) don't care to support it until at least 2011, so you won't see devices that can support USB 3.0 or devices that can actually utilize it's bandwidth in the near future. Kind of a shame, USB 2.0 is simply lagging behind as it is easily capped, FW never really picked up, and most eSATA implementations don't have power through it.

 

usb 3.0 sounds so good, but without the market momentum and product range that supports it, no one is going to be vanguard for this technology.

 

I'm not too surprised, really. Would have been nice to see it implemented though, although I don't have any USB 3.0 devices anyway

 

USB 3 doesn't seem necessary right now, though. Yeah it's fast, but right now eSATA does 3 Gbps. USB 2 is compatible with virtually everything, so right now, USB 2 + eSATA seems perfect. I had high hopes for USB 3, but it looks better to hold out for Light Peak and in the meantime eSATA+USB 2 will meet all of my needs. Also someone mentioned eSATA's disadvantage is that it doesn't have power. Well it appears to me that most of the drives with eSATA have their own power supplies anyway so it's not so bad. Though I think eSATA flash drives will be impractical because of this, but they are a niche anyway.

 

thats exactly what i think is happening.

what thinkpad do you own that uses eSATA? even if you have one, 99% of laptops dont. eSATA is a standard very few use while the majority is stuck with usb 2.0, old tech thats should have been replaced years ago.

 

Most current laptops have eSATA now. Lenovo hasn't released a new notebook in a while, but their latest releases such as the T400s have it. I would bet that all the Q1 2010 Lenovos will have eSATA in them.

 

Even if there is no built-in eSATA port, there is no need to worry: Lenovo offers a 2.1lbs $200 eSATA adapter (which also does a bunch of other things) for all 2010 ThinkPad models.

 

eSata has no specs for power transfer. Kind of a pain in the rear to carry around more and more power bricks. Already got the laptop and cellphone.....

 

esata is like the scsi connector of the old.... which was pretty much phased out by the usb 2.0 technology, so i guess when usb 3.0 comes out esata will also be phased out slowly.

 

I'm contemplating getting an eSATA drive and using an Expresscard eSATA adapter. USB 3.0 is too little too late in my opinion. eSATA is fast right now and I don't have to wait till 2011 for it to be integrated into chipsets. And Light Peak might be the true next generation standard.

 

neither lightpeak or esata do power so i dont see how either can become a universal standard.

 

Wrong. Nothing is stopping Light peak from having power. You'll just need a hybrid copper/fiber cable. And there is a power over eSATA standard. Not that there are that many eSATA devices that don't supply their own power (most of the time, you have desktop hard drives and RAID arrays that can use eSATA and they always have their own power. The only eSATA device that really needs powered eSATA is the eSATA flash drive, and that's a tiny niche market.)

 

it'll be more expensive but it'll be worth it. USB can't do 10 gbit/s at 100 feet, and 10 gbase ethernet is enormously expensive. And it can be upgraded to 100 gbit/s eventually.

 

Did I read this correctly? You counter the need for power over eSATA by saying eSATA products which need more power already have their own power supply anyways??

It's like saying, we don't need alternative fuels, we already have fossil fuels right now!!!!

When SATA IO decides to get their tail in order and push out the power over eSATA initiative, then we can talk power over eSATA. Until then, it holds as much clout as Duke Nukem Forever and unicorns.

 

Several laptops are using proprietary solutions for power over eSATA. The next revision of SATA/600 will add official power support for eSATAp.

 

I don't understand. What products could really benefit from power over eSATA? Desktop hard drives maybe, but most of those need two USB ports for power, so I don't want to have to connect two eSATA ports. RAID arrays, definitely no. Portable external hard drives, I can see those, but right now laptop hard drives aren't the fast anyway and SSDs are expensive (and more useful as a boot drive). You're left with eSATA flash drives which few people need or want.

 

Any storage device that currently uses USB will benefit from powered eSATA. It makes an excellent alternative due to lower latencies, lower CPU utilization, and higher throughput. Many external enclosures come with both eSATA and USB interfaces. Given the choice, I'd much prefer a standardized powered eSATA interface over USB3 due to CPU utilization alone.

Additionally, the Light Peak demos that Intel showcased used connectors very similar to USB. Intel is also bundling copper along with the fiber in the cable to transfer power. A potential universal cabling standard would be foolish to overlook that. Lastly, it's plastered all over Intel's Light Peak site that they intend to ship it in 2010. The rumors of them purposely holding off integrating USB3 into their chipsets until 2011 seems all too deliberate considering the circumstances.

 

That doesn't really answer my question. What devices specifically would benefit? I've never seen a problem with CPU utilization with USB, and since USB itself is slow, I don't think it's too noticeable if it uses a little CPU (more noticeable is the fact that it's slow)

Powered eSATA only really makes sense for flash drives and 2.5in external hard drives. Every other one needs its own power. And other than expensive SSDs, you won't be able to really use the eSATA interface because those laptop drives aren't that fast (although they'll be maybe a little faster than under USB.)

 

I already said that lol. I think it's actually pretty wise not to emphasize USB 3.0 for the interface of the future. For one, you still have ethernet Displayport HDMI which USB 3.0 doesn't attempt to replace, while Light Peak is meant to replace all of them. In addition, going fiber is a good choice, with copper, you have either limited range and high speed or low speed and long range. Fiber can do long range and high speed. Plus I bet it's going to be impossible to get 20 gbit/s or more from a copper cable, while Intel is talking about future Light Peak upgrades of 100 gbit/s.

 

well how about expresscard 2.0 then?
please please please please please

 

You want Expresscard 2.0? 300 DOLLARS!

what?

NO USB 3.0 FOR YOU!

COME BACK ONE YEAR!

 

You mention 2.5" drives like they are a niche product that won't drive sales....

Seriously, without external harddrives, there would be little need to move past USB 2.0. To write them off will write off innovation of external transfer interfaces.

 

um what? I didn't say anything about 2.5 in drives being a niche product. In fact I think they are more popular than the desktop variety. But from what I've seen, few even have eSATA and few really need it. Maybe SSDs will need it, but they're too expensive right now.

 

Yes, I did answer your question. But then again, you also answered your own question. Maybe you don't see the importance of the external storage market...

A typical 2.5" HDD saturates a USB2 connection, which is only able to sustain about 40MB/s in real-world usage. Laptop HDDs that have been on the market for 6 months can achieve well past 90MB/s.

Once again, any kind of external storage, including flash drives and standard laptop HDDs, could benefit from a powered eSATA interface. Of course, devices that utilize this right now are scarce, but devices utilizing USB before it was released as a standard were pretty scarce too.

 

hmmm ok then I guess. I didn't know if laptop drives could go to 90 MB/s. I'm probably going to only use desktop drives because they're faster but I now see the benefit of powered eSATA.

 

oh, usb2.0 has been the bottle neck for well more than 6 months....

 

Much longer than that. Harddrives have been bottlenecking USB 2.0 for well over two years.

 

You could simply buy a ExpressCard 3.0 later next year, but we´ll need to acquire enclosures that support 3.0 speeds, which I don't think we'll see competitive prices.

 

yea...i was just refering to this: