Friday, Jan. 9, 2009 | 4:53 p.m.
Symwave demonstrated the USB 3.0 technology at CES 2009 on Friday.
Displayed at CES was USB 3.0-supporting equipment from cables to monitors to portable hard drives, and test equipment that's going to be available commercially in 2009-2010 .
USB 3.0 will be the fastest USB technology, supposedly 10 times faster than now with its maximum throughput of 5Gbit/sec. It is also said to be backward compatible to prior USB 2.0 devices.
However, USB 3.0 examples of throughput on display were underwhelming. A prototype USB 3.0 hard drive on display at CES 2009 topped out 1320 Mb/s (165 MB/s) in read operations and 1000 Mb/s (125 MB/s) in write processes.
However, you have to start somewhere and USB 2.0 also delivered much less than promised when it showed up in first products in late 2001. USB 2.0 was rated up to 480 Mb/s, but the real numbers were much closer to 250 Mb/s. It took a few years until the technology improved and finally came closer to its 480 Mb/s specification.
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