Microsoft has announced that its upcoming operating system, Windows 8, will offer native USB 3.0 support. In the results coming till now, USB 3.0 is 10 times faster than USB 2.0, can offer speed upto 5 Gbps There is no doubt, how we are addicted to use USB devices at present, but the question is, till the release of Windows 8, will hardware support be available with ease?
Yes, you may not belive this right now but USB3, a "SuperSpeed" USB device can offer speed up to 5 Gbps. It has a new transfer type called "streams", which allows the storage drives to read and write data more efficiently. I know, you are more interested in practical imapct, note that now you would 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.
USB 3.0 is more power efficient than its predecessors. It means longer battery life for notebooks and less power consumption for desktops. "The new specification provided 80% more power than USB 2.0. This meant faster charging and removed the need for odd "Y" cables used by external DVD drives and other high power devices." wrote Steven Sinofsky, in a blog post.
With USB 3.0 providing full backwards compatibility, older drivers will still work without any changes.
Suggested Readings:-
USB3 Support Blog Post by Steven Sinofsky
