USB 3.0

How hard would it be to move to USB 3.0 ? that would open alot of doors

No.

I'm really intrigued as to what doors you think it will open? I've not yet actually come across any device that uses USB3 at all, the only ones I'm vaguely aware of that may be useful are hard drives but I've not seen a usecase for why you'd need the extra speed on the RPi.

[Lynbarn]

holeysocks said:

How hard would it be to move to USB 3.0 ? that would open alot of doors

USB v3 is quite a bit more expensive to implement that USB v2, and requires a fair bit more than just substituting a few components, so it is very unlikely to appear on a Raspberry Pi computer for some considerable time to come.

Whilst the extra cost may be insignificant in a $400-500 laptop, it would make a significant difference to a $25-35 device, so I'm afraid those doors will have to be left closed for now.

holeysocks said:

How hard would it be to move to USB 3.0 ? that would open alot of doors

Do you have USB 3.0 keyboard / mouse?

I have a USB3.0 compatible HD caddy. I have no device of any kind that can drive it at USB 3.0 speeds though. Work with what we"ve been given please, instead of wishing into obsolescence (as most product manufacturers would prefer)

@Stef:

Yes, and I type *very* fast.

And you should see me mouse...

The short answer is that a whole new SoC chip would have to be designed. As far as I know there are no ARM based application processors that have a USB 3.0 interface or an interface that would not bottlenech a USB 3.0 chipset mounted on the board. Most of these SoC's are for cell phone use and include a USB 2.0 at 480Mb/s (60MB/s) If you connect a USB 3.0 hub to that you cannot get any faster transfer than the slowest device in the chain.

If you use the search function you can find some discussion of this topic.

[Jessie]

While nothing yet saturates the USB 3.0 there are plenty of items that saturate the USB 2.0 bus so there is a gain to be had.  I have a couple devices that will push 880 Mb/sec (110 MB/sec.)  Which coulnd't get anywhere near that plugged into a USB 2.0 port.

Here is reality, first you should have read my pinned FAQ post at the very top of this section of the forum.  This very topic is covered in there, thanks for being lazy.  Second the SOC in this product has only a USB 2.0 bus for an external bus so all bandwidth is shared by that bus, aside from the SD card.  The next problem is that there just isn't enough processing horse power to drive good speeds out of USB 3.0 devices.  Lastly, aside from the cost of the USB 3.0 IC the USB 3.0 specifacation requires 4 more traces on the PCB (more complex = more expensive) and more expensive jacks.

There are no ARM SOCs at this point that have native USB 3.0 support, however there is at least one that has an PCIe out on the chip and that could be paired to a USB 3.0 host chip.  However this chip has no GPU, and since I own one I can tell you that even though it has native PCIe and SATA getting more than 280 Mb/sec (35 MB/sec) is impossible even when the device is formatted ext4.  It is the Marvell Kirkwood and even though it is clocked at 800 Mhz it chokes at speeds much lower than the max of a 2.0 port.  Though I have never tested the SATA port only the USB 3.0 ports.

1st you are Welcome,, However, I have other things to do besides sit and read post!! But I will strive to be less lazy in the future!!

holeysocks said:

1st you are Welcome,, However, I have other things to do besides sit and read post!! But I will strive to be less lazy in the future!!

Then maybe people have other things to do than sit and reply to your posts

Saying that there been "no" SoC with USB 3.0 been not fully true.

The marvel Armada 628 has this but I´ve not yet seen any equal Pi like boards with this Soc Yet.

see URL ( german heise report ) : http://www.heise.de/ct/meldung/Triple-C ... 95559.html



regards.

It should be noted that the article states that the USB 3.0 Controller works as a USB Client. That could mean that it couldn't be used as a USB Host. Or the article is wrong/unclear.

[plugwash]

Arm stuff with USB 3 is now starting to appear. For example the chromebook, the arndaleboard and the armbrix zero (all of which use the same samsung SoC afaict). I think it will be a few years before we see it come down into the price range of the Pi though.

At the moment the cheapest board with usb 3 is $200:
http://elinux.org/RaspberryPi_Comparison

[Jessie]

Saying that there been "no" SoC with USB 3.0 been not fully true.

The marvel Armada 628 has this but I´ve not yet seen any equal Pi like boards with this Soc Yet.

see URL ( german heise report ) : http://www.heise.de/ct/meldung/Triple-C ... 95559.html



regards.

If you looked at the post dates on this thread you would see it is a tad dated. Yeh there are a few with native 3.0 support now. The Exyenos v4 has native SATA and series 5 has SATA and USB 3.0. The Exyenos v4 had a lot of promise but no one ever broke out the SATA from the SOC. The new Samsung cromebook has USB 3.0 but there is no way to exploit it's full speed yet because it has no other speedy buses.

USB 3.0 on ARM boards is very new. So far I have only seen it on the Arndale board based on the new Exynos 5. But at $249, only the very desperate ones will buy. Personally I'll be waiting for a USB3 board to hit the $100 mark before jumping in. Technically speaking, the Pogoplug v4 also has USB3 but you won't even get USB2 speeds out of that board, so its not up for consideration.

I don't think the RasPi will see USB3 anytime soon, probably not even in the next 5 years because cost is the primary consideration here and new tech is always gonna be expensive.