San Francisco (CA) – We’re drowning in data and sometimes USB 2.0 just isn’t fast enough to move all those bits around.  At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, we were shown prototype USB 3.0 boards and cables that were transferring at 307+ megabytes per second.  On paper USB 3.0 promises to be ten times faster than 2.0 and has the potential to transfer 600 MB/sec.  The USB 3.0 coalition proclaims this is fast enough to transfer a 27 GB HD in just 60 to 70 seconds.

The USB 3.0 port is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 devices meaning you’ll be able to plug old devices into the new hubs/ports.  Several companies were showing off their protocol analyzers which help test the signal integrity and speeds of end-user products.

A rep from ellisys said flash memory and hard drive storage capacities are outstripping USB 2.0 transfer speeds.  Case in point, I often fill up 4 and 8 GB Compact Flash cards while photographing car shows and these things take forever to empty on a USB 2.0 card reader.

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