USB 3.0 vs SSD's

[liquidsnake718]

Will USB3.0.'s read/write speeds be faster than current mid level to good SSDs?? Are there going to be Flash drives that are usb3.0. compatible?

 

[sub mesa]

USB is aimed at external and portable devices, neither apply very well to solid state drives. USB is also a high-latency, high-throughput interface, which is nice for mass storage but not for a system disk which is the prime usage for SSDs.

So probably not, although some SSDs do have a USB 2.0 port like some OCZ products. The latencies will nullify alot of performance potential of the SSD.

While everyone knows throughput, expressed in MB/s, actual performance is always expressed in latency. Though both are related, latencies are more difficult to understand, and companies don't care about correctness but want to brag with high numbers; not low numbers. So latencies are forgotten, but are actually paramount in virtually all computer performance.

PS, Why do you create two threads for the same question?

 

[amnotanoobie]

PS, Why do you create two threads for the same question?

liquidsnake has that really bad habit. Probably one day if a mod becomes really pissed off, he/she might ban him/her.

 

[sminlal]

Any SATA SSD drive will be compatible with USB if you put it into an external enclosure. But the maximum transfer speed of USB 3.0 is very close to the what SSDs can do today and so there may be a bit of a bottleneck there, and as sub mesa said the added latencies of USB will likely have a pretty noticeable effect on random access times compared to a direct SATA connection.

It would still be a lot faster than a USB 2.0 hard drive, though...

 

[sub mesa]

Yea, USB scales pretty well...

USB 1.1: 12Mbps = 1MB/s raw throughput
USB 2.0: 480Mbps = ~ 40MB/s raw throughput
USB 3.0: 4800Mbps or 4,8Gbps = ~400MB/s raw throughput

But since USB is such a complex protocol with lots of overhead and host-based processing, the latencies are higher than a direct interface like PCI-express or Serial ATA. Still USB 3.0 is going to be pretty neat for external devices to move alot of data sequentially from and to your computer. About comparable with using 10 gigabit ethernet, currently only found in server environments.

 

[sminlal]

Since the current version of USB struggles to get beyond 30MB/sec, I'm expecting that USB 3.0 will have a real-life cap at around 300MB/sec. There are some significant differences in the protocol, though, so I may be pleasantly surprised. And it'll probably be a while before I have an external drive fast enough to really test it...

 

[liquidsnake718]

liquidsnake has that really bad habit. Probably one day if a mod becomes really pissed off, he/she might ban him/her.

Sometimes its to get more coverage for that question as we are limiting our questions to a certain segment of readers whereas i want to ask and get different opinions. My questions are not exactly the same as well, I will try to differentiate it in a way that it is not verbatim.

 

[hariseldon_70]

These are just theories !
FACTS : I've tried USB 3.0 installing programs (like firefox, games, etc) and they go faster then traditional SATA II. I've installed VMware desktop too, running a VM on it and it goes faster then on SATA II.
So, may be SSD are even faster, but if you have a SATA on your PC (or on your cheap netbook by 200$), you can easily add a micro USB 3.0, for only 60$, improving your performance.

 

[Awais Ali]

These are just theories !
FACTS : I've tried USB 3.0 installing programs (like firefox, games, etc) and they go faster then traditional SATA II. I've installed VMware desktop too, running a VM on it and it goes faster then on SATA II.
So, may be SSD are even faster, but if you have a SATA on your PC (or on your cheap netbook by 200$), you can easily add a micro USB 3.0, for only 60$, improving your performance.

can you please share benchmark results, it will help alot