Archive notice: This article was originally published on January 5, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Chip manufacturer Symwave plans to show the first SuperSpeed USB 3.0 solutions with Seagate at this year’s CES. Other companies also intend to demonstrate their solutions at the show following publication of the relevant specification in November 2008.
The two companies plan to use Seagate’s FreeAgent external hard drive to demonstrate the practical speed advantages of USB 3.0, using chips from Symwave.
While USB 2.0 reaches a maximum of around 35 MB per second, USB 3.0 is expected to achieve around 300 MB per second. USB 3.0 remains largely backward-compatible, although not every existing USB device will necessarily work with USB 3.0.
To achieve the full data rate, both the receiving and transmitting devices must support the USB 3.0 standard.
The first USB 3.0 devices are expected in mid-2009.
