No USB3 on new Extreme???

Funny that Apple touts the benefits of faster speed USB3 on the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

While it it true that the USB3 port on the AirPort routers would be used for a hard drive or printer, and the speed would not be up to the level of that on a Mac, the speed would be faster than USB2 on the router.

That was the point that I was trying to make, but others declared that it would make no difference. They are entitled to their opinions.

You can bet that USB3 will be on a future version of the AirPorts, and that Apple will play it up as a significant improvement at that time.

As el Duque has pointed out in this thread, the USB controller on the AirPort Extreme as well as on viritually all routers is very slow. I'm grateful to him for pointing this out, and I'm embarassed to say I did not know this.

While upgrading the AE to a USB 3 port might increase tranfer speeds somewhat, it's unlikely to equal the transfer speed on a USB 3 port on a computer without spending what likely is a prohibitive amount to upgrade the AE USB port controller. I think this is the reason Apple did not inlude a USB 3 port on the latest iteration of the AE.

Yesterday I ran tests copying a 1.04 GB file from a Mac on a gigabit Ethernet network to a USB 2-connected hard drive on both its AE 802.11ac router and on another Mac computer. It took 35 seconds to complete the transfer to the drive connected to the Mac computer and 60 seconds to complete the file transfer to the AE-connected drive.

The moral of the story is don't use an AE USB-connected drive for serious file transers. Instead, use a NAS device or a USB 3 or USB 2 drive connected to a USB port on another networked computer.

Good points.

If Apple goes to a USB3 port on the AirPort, it would seem logical that they would go to a faster processor to allow the port to move data faster.

Does not seem logical that they would add a USB3 port and then use the current processor. No benefit there.

As it stands now, the USB2 port on an AirPort operates at about half the speed of a USB2 port on a computer.

Bob Timmons wrote:

Funny that Apple touts the benefits of faster speed USB3 on the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

While it it true that the USB3 port on the AirPort routers would be used for a hard drive or printer, and the speed would not be up to the level of that on a Mac, the speed would be faster than USB2 on the router.

That was the point that I was trying to make, but others declared that it would make no difference. They are entitled to their opinions.

You can bet that USB3 will be on a future version of the AirPorts, and that Apple will play it up as a significant improvement at that time.

That's incorrect. USB 3 IS faster on a computer. You can't compare a computer with a router. It's not the same thing. Someone just posted they did a test, and USB 2 was twice as slow as it was on a computer. Apple would be better off optimizing their routers for USB 2.0 first. They have a long way to go before even doing that. So what's the point of adding USB 3.0? If Apple has NEVER supported full bandwidth USB 2.0 on a router, what makes you think they'll add USB 3.0? In fact, if you can find me EVEN ONE router manufacturer that supports full bandwidth USB 2.0, I'll salute you. A router USB port is fine for slower unimportant transfers, but you're better off getting a NAS. That's what they're made for. Just think of a router USB port as a nice bonus addition. But it's not optimized to take advantage of the USB bus.

Bob Timmons wrote:

Good points.

If Apple goes to a USB3 port on the AirPort, it would seem logical that they would go to a faster processor to allow the port to move data faster.

Does not seem logical that they would add a USB3 port and then use the current processor. No benefit there.

As it stands now, the USB2 port on an AirPort operates at about half the speed of a USB2 port on a computer.

If Apple moved to USB 3, I'm not sure it's going to be equivalent speed to USB 2. I mean, you see transfer rates at 50% of what normal USB 2 supports, but I'm not sure that means adding USB 3 you will get 50% of that bandwidth. Apple (and other manufacturers) would have to seriously alter the hardware of a router. Of course I admit it's possible they could do this, but the cost would be great. They would have to give it a much more powerful chip that would be overkill for a router.

It's probably not worth it for any manufacturer since it would drive costs high, and besides, that's what a NAS is for. Why spend a lot of money on something for a small feature most people don't use, for something another device does extremely well?

el Duque, I think I am starting to get your point.

As always the data path is only as fast as its "slowest" point, and in this case it is the Airport Extreme's USB Controller which is less than USB 2 speed. So in this current model there is absolutely no benefit for Apple to add (and pay a premium for) USB 3 port.

Mmmmmm there is a lot of information to digest before making any purchase decision.

DavidH

I went through the same thing a lot of you are experiencing a couple years ago. I wanted to use my Airport Extreme USB as networked drive to store files, media etc.

After much research I realized a NAS was going to be (much) faster on Gigabit. Unfortunately, it is more expensive, but the speeds and features are awesome.

In fact, I think even having USB 3 on my NAS is rather useless, although I haven't really tested it in a while. Maybe I'll do that if I get time today.

I think all you folks poo pooing the NAS potential of a USB3 AE are missing a point. Assuming full USB3 implementation, one could use a USB3 drive as a fast NAS through gigabyte Ethernet, but not wireless. The other wireless functions remain, but USB3 could make a difference, PROVIDED there is no 2.4 interference.

Bottom line. I'll bet Apple knows what it s doing.

It's not the USB controller – it's the AE's processor that has to convert USB into network traffic (IP-interface). This is the bottle neck inside the AE. In reviews I read the new AE's USB througput is still less than 10 MB/s. Compare: USB 2 goes up to 40 MB/s, USB 3 to 500 MB/s.

So there's absolutely no reason to integrate USB 3 into AE.

Mumbles - how about giving el Duque some points for addressing your question. I think he opened the discussion and answered why no USB3. I was about to ask the same thing on my new TC.

Funny thing, I bought the Airport TC to replace a Synology NAS that I couldn't get to work properly on my network. I couldn't get the internet access to work on the Synology, so at that point I figured I didn't need it, and I was dying for an easy solution. I'm past the return period, so I'm stuck with my Airport TC now.

Anyway, I'm archiving my TC to a USB-connected drive, and yes, it's painfully slow, and I only now realize why, thanks to this thread. I do have a question however:

-if I am archiving my Airport TC to a USB drive connected directly to my Airport TC, is the archiving process actually using my computer from which I initiated the archive? In other words, since it takes hours, and may eventually take days, can I pick up my laptop and leave home with it, and have the archiving still happen during that time (since it's transfering form the TC to the USB drive, which stay put)? Or is the process actually using my computer in some way, and leaving with it will pause the archiving process (or even crew it up)? It's hard to test, because it takes so long, I wouldn't be sure if it took even longer because I left for a few hours...

-incidentally, is there a difference between archiving, and copying from the TC then pasting to the USB-connected drive?

Thanks.

Um no, you are completely short sighted. One USB 3.0 port connected to a USB 3.0 hub would allow you to connect 2 7200 rpm or solid state external hard drives to your TC, more if it was a powered hub. Think of it this way...if you could connect three or 4 same size drives you'd be able to make a RAID 01,5,10, or JBOD. Seeing as the Time Capsule was originally created as an automated minimal effort back up system,why not add fault tolerance and redundancy to the mix. And if your like me and have a networked iTunes account so your whole family can access your HD movies,music, and TV shows on all their devices (comps, pads, phones, and apple TVs), you wouldn't have network stutter and buffering problems as much...AC is great but it still has limits unfortunately. So in summation you spoke with out thinking. He'll I wish they had a model that had a Thunderbolt port.

I have to agree with el Duque and disagree with you.

The problem is that the USB controller (or whatever the technical name is) on an AirPort Extreme or on a Time Capsule cannot handle even USB 2 speeds.

You can test this by comparing the time transfer speeds of a fairly large file to both a USB 2 port connected disk on a computer and a USB 2 port connected disk on a Time Capsule or on an AirPort Extreme.

el Duque,

I just purchased an AirPort Extreme to replace my old Cisco/Linksys router because it was not Docsys3 capiable. The Cisco had 4 ethernet connectors that I utilized - 3 that connected to different parts of my house with pcs and printer attached via cat 6 cable and one ethernet port connected to my Synology NAS drive.

I had to drop one portion of my house from the wired configuration I currently because the AirPort only has 3 ethernet ports available. I have two of my three wired connections for pcs and the NAS connected to the three AirPort ethernet ports.

I did order a usb cable to use to connect the Synology drive to the router but I noticed that the AirPort usb is only a usb2. I have a number of portable usb and transferring data to them is painfully slow.

My Syology NAS is two years old but it has a usb3 connetor. I have only the NAS drive as cat5 or cat6 connected device to the router and it has been blazing fast. I access the NAS regularly from a number of wired and wireless devicess.

I will try the usb connector but I am quesing that I will see a performance hit on most of the files that I work with.

Your comments seem to indicate that accessing data on a NAS is no problem via a usb2. Is that true? Thank you. Doug