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Windows 8 Will Have 'Robust USB 3.0 Support'
Yesterday afternoon Microsoft posted on its Building Windows 8 blog—always a momentous happening—this time announcing native Windows 8 support for the USB 3.0 hardware connection standard. Microsoft's Dennis Flanagan, the Director of Program Management for the Devices and Networking group, wrote that at up ot 5GB per second, USB 3.0's data rate was ten times faster than that of USB 2.0. He also notes that the newer standard's improved power management features have positive implications for battery life on laptops and tablets.
"By 2015, all new PCs are expected to offer USB 3.0 ports, and over 2 billion new "SuperSpeed" USB devices will be sold in that year alone," writes Flanagan in the blog post. "The decision to invest in USB 3.0 was an easy one to make, but doing so without compromising the existing USB ecosystem was a big challenge to overcome. Our design had to follow the revised 3.0 specification precisely in order to enable emerging USB 3.0 hardware. There are also billions of older USB devices that Windows must remain compatible with."
Ten Billion Devices
There are already around 10 billion USB devices that use earlier versions than 3.0. Windows XP SP1 added support for USB 2.0 to the operating system, made for devices that could pass data at a maximum clip of 480Mbps, compared with USB 1.0's max of just 12Mbps. Not only does USB 3.0 offer the much higher transfer rate of 5Gbps, but it supports hardware using any the previous versions of the standard.
What does this speed improvement mean in real-world scenarios? Flanagan gives an example of how long it would take to transfer a video file in USB 3.0 versus 2.0: "With this new standard, you'd be able to copy a high-definition movie from a USB storage drive in about 80 seconds instead of the 15 minutes it takes with USB 2.0." He also notes that version 3.0 includes a new transfer type called "streams," which offer more efficient processing by devices.
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More Power, Less Power Usage
There are also improvements around power in USB 3.0. The newer standard provides 80 percent more power to devices, making for faster charging of mobile equipment. On the other end of things, the standard results in less power usage for better battery life, as Flanagan explains: "By also introducing new low-power states, finishing tasks more quickly, and powering down at every opportunity, USB 3.0 is more power efficient than its predecessors. This translates to longer battery life for notebooks and less power consumption for desktops."
Flanagan explains that implementing USB 3.0 in Windows wasn't a simple matter of swapping it in place of USB 2.0 support, but required that Microsoft "design a new USB software stack for the new controller while maintaining existing interfaces and behaviors." And the company had to start implementing this even before the USB 3.0 devices started shipping, which meant creating "virtual devices" new prototyping software, and testing the implementation on about 1000 actual hardware devices.
The blog post makes no mention of Apple's support for a competing new standard, Thunderbolt, which, at 10Gbps, actually doubles USB 3.0's throughput. But it's possible that Thunderbolt will remain a Mac-only phenomenon, analogous to Mini DisplayPort.
For a deeper dive into Windows 8's support for USB 3.0, you can read Flanagan's post on the Windows 8 Blog, or you can watch the video
Yesterday afternoon Microsoft posted on its Building Windows 8 blog—always a momentous happening—this time announcing native Windows 8 support for the USB 3.0 hardware connection standard. Microsoft's Dennis Flanagan, the Director of Program Management for the Devices and Networking group, wrote that at up ot 5GB per second, USB 3.0's data rate was ten times faster than that of USB 2.0. He also notes that the newer standard's improved power management features have positive implications for battery life on laptops and tablets.
"By 2015, all new PCs are expected to offer USB 3.0 ports, and over 2 billion new "SuperSpeed" USB devices will be sold in that year alone," writes Flanagan in the blog post. "The decision to invest in USB 3.0 was an easy one to make, but doing so without compromising the existing USB ecosystem was a big challenge to overcome. Our design had to follow the revised 3.0 specification precisely in order to enable emerging USB 3.0 hardware. There are also billions of older USB devices that Windows must remain compatible with."
Ten Billion Devices
There are already around 10 billion USB devices that use earlier versions than 3.0. Windows XP SP1 added support for USB 2.0 to the operating system, made for devices that could pass data at a maximum clip of 480Mbps, compared with USB 1.0's max of just 12Mbps. Not only does USB 3.0 offer the much higher transfer rate of 5Gbps, but it supports hardware using any the previous versions of the standard.
What does this speed improvement mean in real-world scenarios? Flanagan gives an example of how long it would take to transfer a video file in USB 3.0 versus 2.0: "With this new standard, you'd be able to copy a high-definition movie from a USB storage drive in about 80 seconds instead of the 15 minutes it takes with USB 2.0." He also notes that version 3.0 includes a new transfer type called "streams," which offer more efficient processing by devices.
View Slideshow See all (15) slides
More
More Power, Less Power Usage
There are also improvements around power in USB 3.0. The newer standard provides 80 percent more power to devices, making for faster charging of mobile equipment. On the other end of things, the standard results in less power usage for better battery life, as Flanagan explains: "By also introducing new low-power states, finishing tasks more quickly, and powering down at every opportunity, USB 3.0 is more power efficient than its predecessors. This translates to longer battery life for notebooks and less power consumption for desktops."
Flanagan explains that implementing USB 3.0 in Windows wasn't a simple matter of swapping it in place of USB 2.0 support, but required that Microsoft "design a new USB software stack for the new controller while maintaining existing interfaces and behaviors." And the company had to start implementing this even before the USB 3.0 devices started shipping, which meant creating "virtual devices" new prototyping software, and testing the implementation on about 1000 actual hardware devices.
The blog post makes no mention of Apple's support for a competing new standard, Thunderbolt, which, at 10Gbps, actually doubles USB 3.0's throughput. But it's possible that Thunderbolt will remain a Mac-only phenomenon, analogous to Mini DisplayPort.
For a deeper dive into Windows 8's support for USB 3.0, you can read Flanagan's post on the Windows 8 Blog, or you can watch the video