Is there such a thing as a USB 2.0 cable? (1 Viewer)

[John Pine]

I'm purchasing a new Canon i960 printer and I need to buy a USB cable to take advantage of it's USB 2.0 capability. I've already installed a USB 2.0 hub. Or should the cable just be a generic USB?

 

[Patrick Sun]

It can't hurt to make sure it's been rated for USB 2.0 (Hi-speed).

 

[SethH]

Is it just a printer or is it a scanner/fax/copier thing also? If it's just a printer then don't worry about it because you will never need to send anything to a printer at faster than 12Mbps (USB 1.1). Now, if it is a scanner then USB2.0 would certainly be useful. With all that said, I don't think there's any difference between the cables, but as mentioned it couldn't hurt to buy one that specifially says USB2.0.

 

[John Pine]

Thanks guys!

 

[Tekara]

Oh I suppose I'll muck things up a bit. . . in theory there is a difference in the inductance of the cable, it's very similar to the ratings for ethernet cables. But since the runs on the cables are typically very short (5-6ft) there's no practical difference.

 

[Diallo B]

just for giggles, i used a generic usb cable on my external dvd burner to see if there was any difference. (i.e. would i have any problems) lo and behold, for a mere 3.95 this cable works just as good as the 21.95 and up usb 2.0 cable.

i really think the cable makers put 480 mb/s (the usb 2.0 spec) on the exact same cable and price it higher. i have told everyone i know to just buy a regular usb cable and no one has had any problems that i know of.

 

[Christian Behrens]

Where do you get a USB cable for $3.95? I haven't seen anything for less than, say, $15. Of course online they can be had for a few bucks, but if you just wanted to go into a store and buy one, what would be your best bet?

-Christian

 

[Diallo B]

there is a mom and pop computer store up the street in lathrup village,mi on southfield rd. that sells all kinds of cables for cheap. also if you have a microcenter around you can pick up a 6' usb cable for around 6-8 bucks.

at the mom and pop store i got a 25' vga extender for 9.99. a male to male vga cord for 4.95 and many 6' usb cables for 3.95 or 4.95 depending on the manufacturer.

 

[JohanD]

I have hooked up dozens of USB devices.. and I have not seen any difference in USB cables.. of course most of the cables I have used have been "newer" so it may not be a good sample

 

[JohanD]

10ft AM/ BM USB 2.0 Beige Cable -OEM

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...116-105&depa=1

$2.05... $4 shpping.. but man that's cheap.. might want to browse their other USB cables if that's not what your looking for..

 

[AjayM]

The problem with this type of test is to compare how fast your DVD burner is to the specs of USB.

480Mb/s = 60MB/s

The fastest external DVD burner is barely over 5MB/s (theoretical).

That's still faster than USB1 but not by a whole lot.

The best test will be with an external drive, memory reader, etc, basically anything that isn't limited itself in speed.

 

[SethH]

I understand your point, but USB1.1 = 12Mbps = 1.5MBps so that's only about 1/3 of the needed throughput for the burner speed you mentioned in your post. Again, I understand your point, but if the cable was truly rated exactly to 1.1 standard he would have burned a coaster.

 

[JohanD]

We actually did a test at work with both an external USB hard drive an a USB pen drive. We did a file transfer to both devices under usb1.1 and then under usb2.0. The pen drive showed improvement, but was only about twice as fast. The hard drive on the other hand was about 20x as fast.

So with the cd-rw yes there will always be that device limit.. just as there is on any other bus.

 

[AjayM]

Not really, just because it's rated for USB1 doesn't mean it will fail at exactly 1.500000001MBps. You may start seeing noticable signal loss at 5MBps or 10MBps or 20MBps. The same goes with ethernet cabling, in the right conditions you can get a standard CAT5 cable to go 1Gbps, but that doesn't mean it will always work that way or under "severe" conditions.

In the real world the difference between an el-cheapo USB1 cable and a "world-class" USB2 cable will be minimal in most cases. For your external CD-DVD RW, printer, cheap scanners, quite a few cameras, most of the "cheap" memory cards found in cameras (or other devices), etc most of those devices can't make use of the full speed of USB2.

Andrew

 

[Max Leung]

I bought a Sandisk USB2.0 Imagemate Compact Flash reader. I was disappointed when I could only achieve a 2.5 megabyte/second transfer rate (= 20 megabit/s) to my Sandisk Ultra II 512mb CF card (the specs say 60-60x speed). Same speed as my 25x Transcend CF card I bought 2 years ago!

However, it is still 3x faster than using it on my USB1.1 laptop. Damn, maybe I should have gotten a Lexar Firewire card reader...people can get the full bandwidth of the fastest CF cards with that (10 megabytes/s).

But I still haven't ruled out a USB2 hardware/driver problem on my Asus A7N8X Deluxe rev 1.4 motherboard though. Grrr. I hate USB2. Bandwidth has never been an issue with my firewire equipment (printer, DVD burner, and external harddrive). BTW, CPU usage is only a mere 4% copying gigs of files to my firewire hard drive. I believe it spikes to 40% using the USB2 interface. USB2 sucks for intensive data transfers...

 

[Will_B]

I just want to chime in for what may seem like just a gimmick - the USB cables with an LED light built in to each plug. They're not just for rich kids with "hot rod" PCs. I used to always have to hold a flashlight while trying to figure out what was going on with the back of my computer. But now there's a plug with a small LED built in, adding enough light for me to not need a flashlight. Very cool.

But ridiculously expensive.

I got mine with white LEDs, but they also make red, blue, and I think green is the other one.

They also make FireWire cords with LEDs.

 

[AjayM]

It's also important to read the specs of "flash" memory, the performance difference between "cheap" and "premium" memory can be amazing (and often times that difference has nothing to do with price).

For instance, from a review of various CF cards;
Card 1 - 4.1MB/s read - 2.2MB/s write
Card 2 - 3.1MB/s read - 1.8MB/s write
Card 3 - 3.3MB/s read - 1.1MB/s write
Those are 128MB cards
Between 512MB cards;
Best card - 4.2MB/s read - 2.4MB/s write
Worst card - 2.0MB/s read - .8MB/s write

Andrew

 

[Max Leung]

My Sandisk Ultra 2 512mb CF cards are rating for 10 MB (megaBYTES/s) read and 9 MB/s write. They are considered the fastest CF cards out there, with only the Sandisk Extreme considered faster.

My understanding is that the Lexar Compact Flash Firewire Reader is the fastest reader for these cards.

Here is a link to Rob Galbraith's CF performance benchmark database, using a Lexar Firewire Reader:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/mul...?cid=6007-6133

Sandisk Ultra II 512MB, 11,004K/sec

 

[AjayM]

Here's the site where I was grabbing numbers from -
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/mediacompare/

They show the Sandisk Ultra much slower than your numbers. But a different test enviroment/equipment/etc...

Andrew

 

[Max Leung]

Ajay, I have the Sandisk Ultra TWO. 2. TWO as in more than one, less than three.

It is NOT the Sandisk Ultra. The old one. That is previous to the second one. The slow-assed original Ultra. I don't have that one. I have the new and improved version AKA Sandisk Ultra II - The sequel.