No USB3 on new Extreme???

Am I reading it right? The new AirPort Extreme is still USB2 and not USB3???

That is correct, both the new 802.11ac AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule each sport a single 2.0 USB port. Apple has not released any information on why or why not they did not incorporate 3.0 USB ports.

I cannot think of a reason for Apple making this decision.

I was going to buy one but now I want to wait until I hear more about their decision and potential upgrade.

DavidH

USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 2.0, and you're never going to even saturate the USB 2.0 bus, so having USB 3.0 is pointless.

What you say may be true for connections involving the Internet, but I don't think so for local network connections.

I have a local gigabit Ethernet network anchored by a new 802.11ac AirPort Extreme router. From a Mac computer on the network, I copied a 1.04 GB file to a hard disk connected to the AE USB 2 port and the same file to a USB 3-connected USB 3 drive on another Mac on the same network. It took 11 seconds to the USB 3-connected drive and 60 seconds to the USB 2-connected drive on the AE.

I tried another slightly larger file, and the results were 12 seconds versus 65 seconds.

so having USB 3.0 is pointless.

Obviously, you do not have any USB 3.0 devices, or if you do, you have a configuration problem.

James A. Weston wrote:

What you say may be true for connections involving the Internet, but I don't think so for local network connections.

I have a local gigabit Ethernet network anchored by a new 802.11ac AirPort Extreme router. From a Mac computer on the network, I copied a 1.04 GB file to a hard disk connected to the AE USB 2 port and the same file to a USB 3-connected USB 3 drive on another Mac on the same network. It took 11 seconds to the USB 3-connected drive and 60 seconds to the USB 2-connected drive on the AE.

I tried another slightly larger file, and the results were 12 seconds versus 65 seconds.

That's not the same thing. If AE had USB 3.0, it would still be faster to transfer a large file to another mac which had a USB 2.0 connected drive, than to transfer to an AE with a USB 3.0 connected drive. Transferring to a computer is effectively a powerful NAS, where hte AE is just a simple USB controller that is very slow. The AE/TC is NOT a NAS, and it works fine to Time Machine backups, it's not really going to be fast enough to do much with it. It may be possible to get faster speeds with USB 3.0 I guess, but only using wireless AC. Wireless N with usb 3.0 I don't think would make any difference over LAN.

I have serveral USB 3.0 drives, and they're all faster than 2.0 when connected to my Mac via USB 3.0 ports.

Bob Timmons wrote:

Obviously, you do not have any USB 3.0 devices, or if you do, you have a configuration problem.

Transferring files on OS X is not the same thing as an AE/TC. You may get slightly faster speeds, but you're not even going to see near USB 2.0 speeds with a USB 3.0 drive on a TC/AE. You should know this with all the points you have sir.

Why would wireless 802.11ac be faster than gigabit Ethernet?

James A. Weston wrote:

Why would wireless 802.11ac be faster than gigabit Ethernet?

I was saying ac would be faster than n.

with gigabit you might see a slight increase, but you'd have to test it with a router that has USB 3.0 support. Routers don't generally have the capability to even max out usb 2 drive throughput, so I don't see why usb 3 would change that.

On another note, it seems Intel has published a white paper that say usb 3 may interfere with 2.4Ghz networks. Source: http://www.usb.org/developers/whitepapers/327216.pdf

You may get slightly faster speeds, but you're not even going to see near USB 2.0 speeds with a USB 3.0 drive on a TC/AE.

So, you are saying that when/if Apple adds USB 3.0 to an AirPort, that it will not perform any better than the older AirPort devices with 2.0 ports?

How can you predict what the performance might be of a product that does not exist?

Bob Timmons wrote:

You may get slightly faster speeds, but you're not even going to see near USB 2.0 speeds with a USB 3.0 drive on a TC/AE.

So, you are saying that when/if Apple adds USB 3.0 to an AirPort, that it will not perform any better than the older AirPort devices with 2.0 ports?

How can you predict what the performance might be of a product that does not exist?

You can probably look at what other manufacturers have done with their routers. Airport is just a router, it's not anything magical that is going to perform drastically different from anything else on the market as far as usb support. Routers just don't have the hardware to keep up like a NAS or actual computer would.

I never said they would. What I said was a 3.0 port on a new AirPort would likely perform better than a 2.0 port on an old AirPort.

If you say that this is not true, then you are entitled to your opinion.

You can have the last word, though.

We'll never know since Apple hasn't enabled support for it, but with little evidence to support usb 3 being faster on a router, and the fact that it may interfere with 2.4Ghz networks, It doesn't look like USB 3 would make much of a difference.

Of course I would love it if the AE/TC chip supported usb 3 speeds, and there was no intereference. It's just not the case, and It's probably not cost effective for Apple to support this anyway.

It's not really my opinion as much as it's research I've already done on the subject in the past. Maybe someone will release a router with nice usb 3 speeds. I don't know if there is one, but from what I've seen the performance has been lackluster.

Feel free to do research and prove me wrong. I want usb 3 speeds on a router as much as you all do. But that's why I got a Synology NAS which I love.

I dont' think you're going to notice a difference when doing time machine backup. If it's that big of an issue just get a Time Capsule.