USB4 - Great news for external device users

[Clarity]

Thunderbolt has always presented an advanced advantage for external use. But, it has been limited to ONLY OOTB platforms from either Intel or Apple.

This review indicates a manufacturing change. It also supports one of the considerations that the EU has mandated for connector types; namely USB-C.

YES, we will be able to purchase AMD units that supports same as Intel/M1 units.

FYI

[mikewalsh]

@Clarity :-

Y'know, there's one corollary to all this increased bandwidth, extra capabilities, etc. D'you know what it is? I didn't figure it out myself until I happened to have reason to re-read the Wikipedia USB article ealier today....

I never twigged it before, but the transfer rate of USB is NOT measured in Megabytes/sec or Gigabytes/sec. No; it is in fact measured in Megabits or Gigabits per second.....and that's not the same thing at all. Puts an entirely different complexion on things.

Remember your basic computer science, kiddiwinks?

• 1024b = 1Kb

• 1024Kb = 1Mb

• 1024Mb = 1Gb

• 1024Gb = 1Tb

.....etc, etc. BUT; what does a single byte consist of?

Answer; yup, that's right. A single 'byte' is composed of eight 'bits', isn't it.....? So.....

It means that for years, folks have been getting ever so slightly "conned". Because whatever the particular standard's claimed rate of raw throughput happens to be, in order to obtain the actual, real-world data throughput you need to divide that figure by 8. And that brings the claimed USB 4.0 40 Gbps throughput right down to just 5 Gbps.....which is what folks thought they were getting with USB 3.0. Me included!

• USB 4.0 real throughput = the claimed 40 Gigabits/sec equates to 5 Gigabytes per second

• USB 3.0 real throughput = the claimed 5 Gigabits/sec equates to around 600-650 Megabytes per second

Which does in fact gel quite favourably with the readouts I get from certain newer drives when testing them with DriveSpeed! All this time, I've been thinking there's some kind of horrible bottleneck in my system; as it now stands, many of the readouts are in fact quite respectable, and are well in line with what would be expected, depending on the class/standard they belong to.

Food for thought, huh?

Mike.

[Grey]

Food for thought, huh?

Grey sits and grumbles, lazily drinking beer (okay, it's ice water from the freezer ): "Only recently a motherboard with USB 3.2 Gen2 was purchased. To hell with your USB 4!"

[Clarity]

YES! Great expansion as many may have missed this over the years in understanding.

Remember your basic computer science, kiddiwinks?

• 1024b = 1Kb

• 1024Kb = 1Mb

• 1024Mb = 1Gb

• 1024Gb = 1Tb

.....

And to add to what you are expressing

• 8bits = 1byte ===> 8b = 1B (correct notation)

• 1024b = 1Kb = 128B

• 1024Kb = 1Mb = 128KB

• 1024Mb = 1Gb = 128MB

• 1024Gb = 1Tb ...

This is the spec.

The manufactured connecting units, aside from the motherboard manufactures, do NOT perform to spec. This is one of MY leading reasons for frustrated use. I am NOT against USBs units, rather, I advise that the units may not match specs in performance, while in many cases, are 100x times less than spec in deliverable performance while also exhibiting erratic connective behavior in BIOS/UEFI use.

Thanks @mikewalsh for the updating to the thread

P.S. While the USB spec is bit oriented, HDDs and equivalent performance tools continue to report data transfer at the byte-level vs reporting at the bit-level even though the hardware serial design is at a bit-level clocking.

[bigpup]

I am just happy they are sticking with a USB whatever.
Very happy they developed USB - C connection.
No more is it this way or that way?
Just plug it in!

[wiak]

YES! Great expansion as many may have missed this over the years in understanding.

Remember your basic computer science, kiddiwinks?

• 1024b = 1Kb

• 1024Kb = 1Mb

• 1024Mb = 1Gb

• 1024Gb = 1Tb

.....

And to add to what you are expressing

• 8bits = 1byte ===> 8b = 1B (correct notation)

• 1024b = 1Kb = 128B

• 1024Kb = 1Mb = 128KB

• 1024Mb = 1Gb = 128MB

• 1024Gb = 1Tb ...

I will be pedantic...
1000 bits = 1 Kb
1000 Kb = 1 Mb
1000 Mb = 1 Gb
...

except I always thought 'kilo' should be written with a small k (as ex-electronics engineer, where used the likes of kΩ and kV), but I stand corrected (well, maybe not... look here: https://www.npl.co.uk/si-units K is for Kelvin in SI units).

As for the 1024b, well that's 1 Kib (or Kibibit)
1024Kib = 1 Mib (Mebibit)
1024Mib = 1 Gib (Gibibit)
1024Gib = 1 Tib (Tebibit)

similarly, for example, as far as I understand it anyway...
1024KiB = 1 MiB
1024MiB = 1 GiB = 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bits

such manipulations used by storage and RAM manufacturers to also con us when advertising storage capacity in most favourable (to them) way...

mixing 1000 (Base 10) and 1024 (Base 2) combinations isn't really valid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobyte

[rockedge]

One needs to be careful with USB-C cable and have the correct type for the intended purpose.

[Clarity]

@wiak your observation of "switching" from hex to decimal was a conscious decision by someone of the HDD community to make their units appear to store more than the traditional hex announce counterparts. Hence, hex based 1024 is greater that decimal based 1000: so the latter 'hi-jacked' the kilobyte notation under some misleading wording that people did not understand 16bit notation. So, you correctly allude to this annoying (at least to me) difference when you want to compare announced capacities from vendors.

@rockedge I think there is a forum page somewhere on just that issue: You correctly point that, at least for now, its very important to know the difference between

• a power delivery cable

• a data cable

• a full PD-data cable

because some vendors cut corners in the USB cable area.

AMD is steadfast in their decision to NOT update to add Thunderbolt to their arsenal; most noticeably because of the Intel-Apple spec. So for the foreseeable future, we wont be seeing the Thunderbolt feature on their motherboards. USB is the only standard that they support. While Intel-Apple motherboards are standardizing on USB-C ports which double as, both, a Thunderbolt AND USB data protocol transport. I think I have seen a Chromebook that is coming with the combination USB-Thunderbolt port(s).

Just some thoughts

[bigpup]

One needs to be careful with USB-C cable and have the correct type for the intended purpose.

That applies to any USB cable and also the USB port on the computer.

Not so much on cables with normal size USB plugs, both ends, because nothing now uses that size for power connection.

Some cables are setup to provide power only.
Need to make sure the cable is identified as power/data or data, when you buy it.

Charge-only cables only have the positive and negative power, wires but lack the data exchange wires.
All USB cables have the positive and negative wires (because they are the most important) but not all USB cables have the data exchange wires.

I have several micro USB and USB -C connection cables, that are power only. (bad thing is, they really do not mark these that well, if any, as power only)
Easy to use for a data cable, by mistake.
I try to make sure I keep them plugged into power bricks. so I know it is power only.

Some computer USB ports are also power only.
I have a desktop computer with 4 front USB ports.
One USB port is power only.
Can charge your phone with it and not loose a data USB port. (that is the idea anyway)

[Clarity]

In case some have missed this, in reaction to the EU's position on USB connection requirements, the USB standards body are advancing to converging performance with Thunderbolt 4 and beyond.

I have been a survivor of SCSI ("kiddies" wont know of this) standards and have been critical of USB performance for many years.

In September, new USB standard was ratified, yet again with PD requirements and bus performance changes. Yet, as has been the case similar to SCSI, naming of various standards is NOT the standards body forte. Confusing us again, with new names for USB4.

Enjoy

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