What first comes to your mind when you hear the word "performance"? Modern processor? Powerful video card? Gigabytes of RAM?
But often the performance of the system rests on completely other things-on the speed of reading data from the hard drive or during the recording of the music collection on the MP3 player. The emergence of new high -speed USB 3.0 and Sata Rev. 3 – A great reason to remember that we know about data transmission interfaces in general.
Dark centuries
Just ten years ago, no more than five to six games climbed into the hard drive of the latest computer. In 1998, we torn between Baldur’s Gate, Half-Life and Might and Magic 6: I couldn’t install it all at once-there wasn’t enough hard drive.
However, an increase in volume was not a problem – the problem was the speed with which record and reading were made. Then the hard drives were connected by 40-burning IDE -cables also known as ATA or Parallel ATA. The wide IDE shelves were not strong enough, and even uncomfortable, they could not provide high throughput speed. The limit of the most modern standard at that time Ultra DMA 2 amounted to 33 MB/s, although in real conditions things were about three times worse. In addition, two devices were most often connected to one loop at once, and the bus capacity was shared between them.
To connect external devices in the mid -nineties, many different ports were used. Printers usually occupied LPT -port. Keyboard and mice – PS/2 -connectors that have survived to this day. Consistent Com -The port was used to connect computers to each other, as well as to install some models of mice and modems. Motherboards with a keyboard pypino connector were also produced DIN. And joysticks, gamepads and music keyboards used a gaming port (he Midi ). In general, despite the visibility of the order, chaos reigned in connecting external devices.
The era of change
The emergence of a new, single interface USB (Universal Serial Bus – a universal sequential tire) joyfully perceived both ordinary users and hardware manufacturers. By USB you could connect devices without rebooting the computer. In addition, the connector brought unification. Now the keyboard, mouse, joystick and printer were connected through the same port. September 1998, when the finalized version of the USB 1 specification was released.1 – the first version of the interface, which was widespread, has become a kind of line. The USB era has begun.
The first USB drives with a flash memory began to appear-there was a need to increase the capacity of the tire. In April 2000, a new version of the specification was released – USB 2.0 (it is most common today) with support for the Hi-Speed mode, which raised the maximum data exchange rate several tens of times!
Hard wheels also began to increase volumes: if in 1997 the capacity of the standard hard drive was 5-8 GB, then by 2004 this figure increased 15 times. Rapid hard drives required more high -speed interfaces. In contrast to the parallel IDE in 2003, a sequential interface appeared SATA. The maximum data transfer speed took off to 187.5 MB/s. This figure was more than enough, but the volume of hard drives continued to grow inexorably, and in 2004 the specification was released SATA 2 , Providing the throughput of 3 Gb/s (or 375 MB/s). Even now, six years later, a rare computer is at least approaching the maximum speed of the interface.
Renaissance
Two thousand eighth years opened solid -state drives to the general public – SSD (Solid State Disks). Without reaching modern hard drives in volume, they nevertheless won in other characteristics: size and weight, failure tolerance, low power consumed and, most importantly, speed. The time for loading netbooks in which a solid -state drive was used was much less than computers based on hard drives (here, however, it is worth noting that SSD is only suitable for working with OS). The dynamically developing market for solid -state drives made the developers seriously think about the next increase in high -speed standards.
The number of devices using USB connection has also increased. Now it is not only a traditional periphery, but also mobile phones, players, and PSP, and desktop fans, and many other devices. Webcams have acquired support for high-definition permits, external hard drives strive to catch up and overtake the speed of their built-in brothers. USB could not linger for a long time at 2.0. There were two options: either to squeeze, letting go ahead of the more speedy colleagues, such as Firewire , Or grow yourself. Given that USB is now very common and the transition to IEEE1394 I would make adapters or even whole devices buy, the story went along the second path.
As a result, both interfaces were updated in the past year – and USB 2.0, and SATA 2. The launch was ambiguous: first Intel Refused Sata Rev controller. 3 on motherboards with a set of system logic P55, then she postponed the introduction of support for USB 3.0 until 2011.
The rest of the companies reacted to high -speed interfaces more friendly: the first motherboards appear with new controllers, AMD should release a platform with USB 3 support.0 and Sata Rev. 3 already this summer – the chipset is known under the code name AMD Pisces. However, it is worth noting that working with USB 3.0 and Sata Rev. 3 can also be from the old computer – on sale there have already appeared PCIe X1 extensions with the right connectors. Is it worth chasing usb 3.0 and Sata Rev. 3 and what increase in performance will they give, we learned from Alexander Shlensky, a technical specialist of the company Gigabyte , which was one of the first to release a motherboard with USB 3 support.0 and Sata Rev. 3 (look for this board through a page).
On SatArt!
Sata Rev. 3 Sata 2: the third version of the interface maintains a speed of up to 6 Gb/s (750 MB/s) against old 3 GB/s. Here, by the way, it should be noted that when they say “SATA 3”, then the triple sometimes means not a version of the specification, but the data transfer speed is the same three gigabits. In other words, speaking “Sata 3”, a person actually means Sata 2. Therefore, we adhere to the name SATA Rev. 3 – to avoid confusion.
The number of personnel in the SATA Rev interface games. 3, of course, will not increase, but the loading of saving or rollers is able to accelerate. According to Alexander, “hard drives that have always involuntarily limited the speed of the system take a new step to minimize the moments when the user is forced to wait with the data loading computer. Despite the fact that the performance of the hard drives is primarily due to constructive restrictions, do not forget about the cache memory, the exchange of data with which has become https://spintime-casino.co.uk/ much faster. According to testing, already today the superiority of the first hard drives of the SATA Rev standard. 3 can reach 10-35%-depending on the working conditions ".
USB 3.0
The main difference of USB 3.0 from USB 2.0 – an increased order of information transmission speed – from 480 Mbit/s to 4.8 Gbit/s. “The tire of tenfold in the bus capacity was achieved as follows,” Alexander explains. – in the USB 2 cable.0 contain four lines: steam for receiving/transmitting data and steam for the plus and minus power. Transfer according to such a cable is carried out in a symptomed mode, that is, at one point in time, the device can either only transmit, or only accept information. In the USB 3 cable.0 Added five new lines – thanks to this, the interface works in a double sympylex mode. This means that USB 3.0-device can transmit and accept data at the same time ".
At maximum speed USB 3.0, 4.8 Gb/s until no peripheral device transmits data. “This standard was created with the expectation of the future,” explains Alexander. – He gives users confidence that they will not encounter the problem of insufficient interface throughput for a long time, as happened with previous versions. In addition, such a high-speed channel is really necessary for external SSD drivers, the development of which does not stop ".
However, it is unlikely that data on USB 3.0 someday will be transmitted at a speed of 4.8 Gb/s. The problem of inconsistency of theoretical and practical throughput in the new specification has not been solved. You probably know that USB 2.0 peak bandwidth is 480 Mbps (60 MB/s), but in practice the speed is much lower-20-30 MB/s. USB 3.0 This drawback will remain. Alexander says that getting rid of it is almost almost impossible – it is associated with large delays in the tire between the request to transfer data and directly by the start of the transmission.
In addition to speed, in USB 3.0 The current strength has almost doubled (from 500 to 900 milliamps). Thanks to this, you can save USB ports by connecting a slightly more energy-intensive USB standard 2.0 with a double cable only to one connector – they will now have enough power with excess. Our expert says that this will not entail the most powerful power consumption and the validity of the system of the system to the power supply.