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M1 Thunderbolt ports don’t fully support USB 3.1 Gen 2

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Re: M1 Thunderbolt ports don’t fully support USB 3.1 Gen 2

#152
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But USB 3.0 supported USB 2.0 and 1.0/1.1 speeds already without this "generation" garbage. If I plugged a USB 3.0 cable (9 pins) into a USB 2.0 (4 pin) hub, the device still worked at the lower speeds. I could even plug it into a USB 1.1 hub, and it would just work. I didn't need "USB 3.0 Gen 4"[a] (3.0) to know that it would work at "USB 3.0 Gen 2"[a] (1.1) or "USB 3.0 Gen 3" (2.0) speeds. [a]: Made up names; USB 3…

> But USB 3.0 supported USB 2.0 and 1.0/1.1 speeds already without this "generation" garbage. No, not quite. What do you think the USB3.0 SuperSpeed is? Why, a brand new transfer mode. > If I plugged a USB 3.0 cable (9 pins) into a USB 2.0 (4 pin) hub, the device still worked at the lower speeds. You'd be glad to know that nothing changed in that regard with USB3.0, 3.1, and 3.2. In fact, the whole point of this subm…

You keep dancing around my arguments. The issue isn't that things have changed; it's that they've changed in a way that makes things confusing for consumers. Go ask a random person on the street which is better: "USB 3.2 Gen 1 or USB 3.0?" I guarantee you'll find people thinking "USB 3.2 Gen 1" is better because it's a bigger number. But despite that, they're the exact same thing: 5 Gb/sec ("SuperSpeed").

Re: M1 Thunderbolt ports don’t fully support USB 3.1 Gen 2

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the name of the standard. I'm not sure that those names were ever meant to be user-facing, but unfortunately they are. If device-makers choose to support a newer standard (say 3.2), that standard needs to support older speeds (Gen 1), in addition to newer speeds (Gen 2).

But USB 3.0 supported USB 2.0 and 1.0/1.1 speeds already without this "generation" garbage. If I plugged a USB 3.0 cable (9 pins) into a USB 2.0 (4 pin) hub, the device still worked at the lower speeds. I could even plug it into a USB 1.1 hub, and it would just work. I didn't need "USB 3.0 Gen 4"[a] (3.0) to know that it would work at "USB 3.0 Gen 2"[a] (1.1) or "USB 3.0 Gen 3" (2.0) speeds. [a]: Made up names; USB 3…

Sure it did.

You have USB 3 Low speed and Full Speed (aka usb 1), USB 3 High Speed (aka usb 2), and USB 3 SuperSpeed.

Expecting the USB consortium to give things useful names or at least let them keep their names we got used to is the same madness as expecting a singular useful version number from anything Sun derived.

Anyway, according the article everything links at USB 3.1 Gen 2 SuperSpeed+, but then usually doesn't send data at anywhere near the link rate, so that's not an extra layer of confusing.

Re: M1 Thunderbolt ports don’t fully support USB 3.1 Gen 2

#154
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the should really just use sha hashes of the standard document, to avoid all this version name issues.

Sadly this might be more user friendly then the current setup. Even just a bit vector of the capabilities, expressed as a decimal or hex number, would be more comprehensible.

You would then get USB Type 61513 port and USB Type 48757 device, which could only communicate at Type 45151.

Re: M1 Thunderbolt ports don’t fully support USB 3.1 Gen 2

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not a cable thing. I have experienced the same behaviour on both a 2020 intel MBA and a 2021 M1 Pro; a 10GB/s rated Samsung T5 SSD only connects to either Mac at 5GB/s, despite being rated for 10GB/s. The same SSD (and cables) connects to Linux & Windows boxen at 10GB/s. Equally, a Crucial X8 SSD rated for the same 10GB/s connects to both Macs at its rated speed. This behavious has persisted across OS up…

Sounds pretty clearly like Apple thinks certain devices are non-standards compliant. And just because it works at full speed on Linux & Windows doesn't mean it's standards compliant.

Alternatively Apple is not standards compliant. Or it could just be a bug in their driver or controller. Not sure why it makes more sense to assume Apple is doing it right and everyone else wrong.

Re: M1 Thunderbolt ports don’t fully support USB 3.1 Gen 2

#156
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But USB 3.0 supported USB 2.0 and 1.0/1.1 speeds already without this "generation" garbage. No, not quite. What do you think the USB3.0 SuperSpeed is? Why, a brand new transfer mode. > If I plugged a USB 3.0 cable (9 pins) into a USB 2.0 (4 pin) hub, the device still worked at the lower speeds. You'd be glad to know that nothing changed in that regard with USB3.0, 3.1, and 3.2. In fact, the whole point of this subm…

You keep dancing around my arguments. The issue isn't that things have changed; it's that they've changed in a way that makes things confusing for consumers. Go ask a random person on the street which is better: "USB 3.2 Gen 1 or USB 3.0?" I guarantee you'll find people thinking "USB 3.2 Gen 1" is better because it's a bigger number. But despite that, they're the exact same thing : 5 Gb/sec ("SuperSpeed").

> You keep dancing around my arguments.

No, not really. Feel free to point out exactly which argument you feel was ignored.

> The issue isn't that things have changed; it's that they've changed in a way that makes things confusing for consumers.

That seems to be the source of your confusion: nothing has changed. Each USB spec is backwards compatible and specifies the same data transfer modes.

And there is no confusion: if you pick up a USB2 data storage device you know beforehand it won't support SuperSpeed. If you pick up a USB3.0 device you know beforehand it won't support SuperSpeed+. If you pick up a USB3.1 device you know beforehand it won't support SuperSpeed+ 2x or 4x.

The whole point of the submission is to call out that M1 macs don't support USB3.1 unlike the new Mac Studio.

The article also clearly states that Apple doesn't actually advertise USB3.1, just USB3.

Re: M1 Thunderbolt ports don’t fully support USB 3.1 Gen 2

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, USB 3.1 was an update to the spec to allow USB Type C connectors. USB 3.0 specified the old type-a connector on one end and one of the weird oversized type-b connectors on the other end. Maybe not relevant as a consumer to have a difference in the spec version for that, but if you’re a manufacturer trying to implement it, it’s worth a bump to the minor version number.

I have some Android phones that have a USB-C port but only support 2.0 speeds (as per the macOS system info USB tree thing). Which version is that then? I've always assumed that the physical layer of the protocol and the connectors themselves were separate specs and you could have USB protocol running over any kind of arbitrarily shaped connector. And no protocol over a USB(-A) connector, because those are de-facto l…

Note that in my experience MacOS (M1) is pretty bad with USB devices, I have a lot of things that just don't work properly on the Mac but work on Windows and Linux (ebook reader and phones for example).

Re: M1 Thunderbolt ports don’t fully support USB 3.1 Gen 2

#158
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Adding a new transfer rate seems like a reasonable place to bump the minor version number of a protocol. After reading all of that I'm even more convinced that it should have just been USB 3.2. I'm not sure you read any of that. I mean, they bumped the standard version to 3.1 from 3.0 after adding a new transfer rate. Also, USB 3.2 was bumped up from 3.1 after adding two new data transfer modes. I also add that the…

Huh? > the implementations that supported SuperSpeed transfer rates were dubbed USB 3.1 Gen1, while the implementations that supported SuperSpeed+ transfer rates were dubbed USB 3.1 Gen2. This is supposedly better than USB 3.0 (original standard), USB 3.1 (new standard, same SuperSpeed as USB 3.0), and USB 3.2 (new standard and also SuperSpeed+).

> This is supposedly better than USB 3.0 (original standard), USB 3.1 (new standard (...)

Not quite.

* USB 3.0 specifies SuperSpeed. No need to go on about GenX given it's the first one introduced by USB3 is there?

* USB 3.1 specifies two data transfer modes: Gen1 (the one introduced in USB 3.0) and Gen2 (the fancy new mode just introduced).

* USB 3.2 specifies the Gen1 and Gen2 modes from USB3.1, and adds two additional modes.

Re: M1 Thunderbolt ports don’t fully support USB 3.1 Gen 2

#159
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But USB 3.0 supported USB 2.0 and 1.0/1.1 speeds already without this "generation" garbage. If I plugged a USB 3.0 cable (9 pins) into a USB 2.0 (4 pin) hub, the device still worked at the lower speeds. I could even plug it into a USB 1.1 hub, and it would just work. I didn't need "USB 3.0 Gen 4"[a] (3.0) to know that it would work at "USB 3.0 Gen 2"[a] (1.1) or "USB 3.0 Gen 3" (2.0) speeds. [a]: Made up names; USB 3…

> But USB 3.0 supported USB 2.0 and 1.0/1.1 speeds already without this "generation" garbage. No, not quite. What do you think the USB3.0 SuperSpeed is? Why, a brand new transfer mode. > If I plugged a USB 3.0 cable (9 pins) into a USB 2.0 (4 pin) hub, the device still worked at the lower speeds. You'd be glad to know that nothing changed in that regard with USB3.0, 3.1, and 3.2. In fact, the whole point of this subm…

The Mac Studio is an M1 Mac, so you might want to rephrase that part.
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