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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

#191

Post by esperent »

spankalee wrote: post #182
grishka wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USB 3.1 Gen 1 is the straight rebranding of USB 3.0 Why? To solve what exactly? In a sane world, it'd be major.minor, with nothing appended at the end. Allowing marketers to take over everything was such a terrible mistake. At this point I myself just don't differentiate USB versions beyond 3.0. 2.0 is the slow one, 3.0 is the fast one, anything newer is "so fast I won't ever saturate this much bandwidth anyway". T…

The spec got a version bump from 3.0 to 3.1 and the new version of the spec added an additional transfer mode called "Gen 2". From that point of view it makes a lot of sense. You need to differentiate the spec version from the features talked about in the spec. From a marketing standpoint, it's terrible as most people need a simpler name and are incorrectly choosing the spec version. Marketing labels should just be "…

> From that point of view it makes a lot of sense

From the point of view of the millions of people who have to use the damn things and probably aren't even aware the name comes from a spec doc somewhere, or even what a spec is, it makes absolutely no sense and the fact that the people who wrote the spec didn't make some effort to account for this means they failed badly.

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

#193

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

grishka wrote: post #126
notatoad wrote: post #113

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…

The USB-C connector has a dedicated legacy USB 2 pair that is always available. This is the same as an upgraded (usually blue) USB-A connector with the addition of mirrored pins.

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

#194

Post by dwaite »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #138
faller wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But then why rename 3.0 to 3.1 then 3.2? I honestly have no idea what you're trying to ask. Keep in mind that: * USB3.0 was released in 2008. * USB3.1 was released in 2013. * USB3.2 was released in 2017. Each standard is standalone, and specifies all of its transfer modes. I wouldn't be surprised if each of these specs also included fixes, and thus technically would represent different specs.

I'm not talking about the standards, but the marketing names. "USB 3.0" speed is now "USB 3.2 Gen 1" (or "USB4 Gen 1") speed just because the USB Consortium said so.

3.0 wasn’t the speed or the feature. It was an engineering spec with a lot of features, optional and required.

3.1 took 3.0’s features and added more optional features to make a larger document.

3.2 likewise.

You are likely thinking the actual feature marketing names. Things like USB-C connectors and Superspeed 20 Gbps. These do not change release to release. They also might require conformance testing to use those names.

I actually blame the current mess on PC motherboard manufacturers for wiring up a crapload of non-conforming ports, like a “USB-A Gen 2x2” with a red plastic tab. IMHO thy did this because nobody wanted to take the risk of actually pushing toward USB-C. It left them without a way to use a certified/marketing name, hence pretending engineering names were appropriate.

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

#195

Post by DiggyJohnson »

faller wrote: post #123
grishka wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USB 3.1 Gen 1 is the straight rebranding of USB 3.0 Why? To solve what exactly? In a sane world, it'd be major.minor, with nothing appended at the end. Allowing marketers to take over everything was such a terrible mistake. At this point I myself just don't differentiate USB versions beyond 3.0. 2.0 is the slow one, 3.0 is the fast one, anything newer is "so fast I won't ever saturate this much bandwidth anyway". T…

> Why? To solve what exactly? In a sane world, it'd be major.minor, with nothing appended at the end. It's always important to get acquainted with a topic before succumbing to the desire to mindlessly criticize in ignorance. A quick search in Wikipedia shows that USB 3.1 specifies a brand new transfer rate, dubbed SuperSpeed+ transfer mode , " (...)which can transfer data at up to 10 Gbit/s over the existing USB3-typ…

Wait, am I reading this right?

The old transfer mode was

> Superspeed

But the new mode is different, it’s name is

> Superspeed+

I’m sorry, I take your point in the first paragraph but I can’t find a way to wrap my head around how this system helps anyone.

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

#196

Post by DiggyJohnson »

faller wrote: post #131
jandrese wrote: post #127

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.

> 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…

This is interesting, because I see your point and this is a good breakdown of the current naming scheme

… but it still seems indefensible. This comment almost reads like satire. I know standards are hard, really hard, but this seems indefensible. Especially the Superspeed -> Superspeed+ (this is ridiculous). Will this get simplified with USB4?

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

#197

Post by coryrc »

grishka wrote: post #126
notatoad wrote: post #113

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…

It's 3.1 or newer, full speed device.

Why normal people should care about the spec version is weird to me.

The spec does specify the connectors for using the USB logo and claiming compliance. But if you don't care about compliance then use whatever connector you wish!

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

#198

Post by derefr »

dwaite wrote: post #187
grishka wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USB 3.1 Gen 1 is the straight rebranding of USB 3.0 Why? To solve what exactly? In a sane world, it'd be major.minor, with nothing appended at the end. Allowing marketers to take over everything was such a terrible mistake. At this point I myself just don't differentiate USB versions beyond 3.0. 2.0 is the slow one, 3.0 is the fast one, anything newer is "so fast I won't ever saturate this much bandwidth anyway". T…

It is a spec, not software. If usb 3.1 includes all the details on how to build and talk to devices that 3.0 did. If a device built for 3.0 suddenly wasn’t 3.1 compliant it would be a huge engineering failure on behalf of the USB-IF. You are likely thinking of named features and of conformance marks, things like Superspeed 10 Gbps and the like. People outside hardware developers aren’t expected to know USB 3.O vs 3.1…

If most of the USB 3.1 spec is just USB 3.0, and you only need to refer to the USB 3.0 parts to build your device, then why not just build your device solely according to the USB 3.0 spec, and call it a USB 3.0 device?

Compare/contrast: the 802.11 specification series. Each successive specification only lays out the unique new modes; with the expectation that devices support multiple specifications, where each specification lays out its own supported modes. So if you e.g. build a device that can only do 802.11n things, and not 802.11ac things, then you’ve built an 802.11n device. But 802.11ac peers — which are really “802.11ac + 802.11n” peers — will still be able to talk to it in 802.11n mode — but they do this according to the 802.11n spec that they also support; not according to the 802.11ac spec.

> People outside hardware developers aren’t expected to know USB 3.O vs 3.1

Why not? How else should you know whether your device can go at its full advertised speed?

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

#199

Post by sircastor »

superkuh wrote: post #89

Quoted post unavailable.

> But Apple's M1 based computers are terrible console-like things that can't do what's expected of a computer.

I understand that in an abstract context, and I guess it depends on your day-to-day needs. For me, I was incredibly excited to get an M1, and that lasted about a day until I realized that it was just doing everything I was doing on my Intel Mac and lot faster. It doesn't even occur to me that I'm using an M1 because I have had zero speed bumps. The only time I've even been reminded of having an M1 was when the computer told me I needed to install Rosetta to run a program.

My M1 does everything I expect a computer to do. So much so that it's disappeared and I'm just back to "is there a Mac Native version?" for x.

I wonder if the comments were the same back when transitioning from the 68k to the PPC.

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

#200

Post by coryrc »

derefr wrote: post #198
dwaite wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a spec, not software. If usb 3.1 includes all the details on how to build and talk to devices that 3.0 did. If a device built for 3.0 suddenly wasn’t 3.1 compliant it would be a huge engineering failure on behalf of the USB-IF. You are likely thinking of named features and of conformance marks, things like Superspeed 10 Gbps and the like. People outside hardware developers aren’t expected to know USB 3.O vs 3.1…

If most of the USB 3.1 spec is just USB 3.0, and you only need to refer to the USB 3.0 parts to build your device, then why not just build your device solely according to the USB 3.0 spec, and call it a USB 3.0 device? Compare/contrast: the 802.11 specification series. Each successive specification only lays out the unique new modes; with the expectation that devices support multiple specifications , where each speci…

> How else should you know whether your device can go at its full advertised speed?

Just say what speed it supports using which technology. SuperSpeed at X Gbps, SuperSpeed+ at Y Gbps, high speed at 480 Mbps. You can only use a speed both support.

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