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The problem is that the version of the standard is conflated with the version of the port. Here is a better system:

1) The standard has a version number. I would have suggested semver, except that USB will always be backwards compatible within the same physical port, so there's no need for separate major/minor versions. We can just use an incrementing number 1,2,3 etc.

2) The standard gives each physical port layout a name, eg. A, B, C. Port layouts can be added/removed in new versions of the standard.

3) The standard specifies and names various transfer rates, eg. T1, T2, etc with new names being added in new versions of the standard. (eg. version 1 defines speed T1, version 2 defines speeds T1, T2. etc.)

4) Manufacturers are not allowed to use the version of the USB specification in their marketing material at all. A port is not "USB 3.1", it's "USB C T2".

The version of the spec only serves to confuse customers because the whole point is that versions are backwards compatible. The only thing the customer cares about is the physical port layout and what features/transfer rate are supported over that port.

So the marketing names would be:

USB A T1, USB A T2

USB C T1, USB C T2, USB C T3

As a customer, I can easily see that I can't plug a "USB A T1" into a "USB C T1" because they are different physical ports. I can also see that "USB C T2" is faster than "USB C T1".

Admittedly thing are slightly more complicated because the transfer rate is not the only "feature", we also have to consider what kinds of data can be transferred. We can extend the full marketing name to:

USB C T1 (audio)

USB C T1 (audio,video)

etc.

Obviously this is too long to have on the port itself, so we can stick with just the port type and transfer speed (eg. USB C T2) as the short name.

I think you just recreated what the USB Forum is already doing?

The standard as a whole has a version number that increments with the entire standard document.

Port layouts are named A, B, C (and deprecated Micro-A, Micro-B, and Mini-A).

The transfer rates are now named: Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 1x2, and Gen 2x2. (These names are stupid, but they are names. Gen 1 is all the transport capabilities from USB 1.0 to USB 3.0 {including the now "classic" "superspeed"} and Gen 2 is new starting with USB 3.1 and the even worse named Gen 1x2 and Gen 2x2 are new starting with USB 3.2).

> Obviously this is too long to have on the port itself, so we can stick with just the port type and transfer speed (eg. USB C T2) as the short name.

Marking the port type is redundant because USB has been good about giving every port type a very different physical silhouette. USB A ports look nothing like USB B ports look nothing like USB C ports. (Arguably there are legitimate complaints that USB Micro-A and USB Mini-A had some visual at a glance issues in practice, but you couldn't insert the wrong cable into the wrong port.)

So yeah, that just leaves finding a better way to mark the ports (and cables!) with the transfer speed. "Gen 1", "Gen 2", "Gen 1x1", and "Gen 1x2" all take up a lot of space and maybe aren't the friendliest names to mark on/near ports/cables, but are in theory potentially the only bit of information that ports need to be marked that cannot be assumed by physical port shape. (ETA: Which the USB-IF Marketing names like SuperSpeed 40 and logos like an arc around the number 40 next to the USB symbol are designed to do, though the fact that people don't recognize them and they don't seem common enough in practice that people know they exist is a marketing failure more than a technical failure of the standards.)

> I think you just recreated what the USB Forum is already doing?

If they were doing this then there wouldn't be any ports described as "USB 3.1" (see point 4). The version of the standard is not just irrelevant but actively misleading to use in marketing material.

> Marking the port type is redundant because USB has been good about giving every port type a very different physical silhouette.

On the port itself, sure, but if I'm buying a laptop online then it's pretty important what type of port it has, so saying "USB C T2" is a lot more useful than just "USB T2". How would I even know what silhuette the port has?

The two most important pieces of information are the type of port and the transfer speed. There are only a small number of possibilities for each, and the latter is a purely numeric value, so a letter/number pair is sufficient.

> If they were doing this then there wouldn't be any ports described as "USB 3.1" (see point 4). The version of the standard is not just irrelevant but actively misleading to use in marketing material.

That gets to the edit I made at the end. The USB-IF Marketing group has never suggested marketing ports/cables as "USB 3.1". They've always preferred the "SuperSpeed {Bandwidth}" branding over "USB {SpecNumber}". There's a chart here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB4#USB_3.x_.E2.80.93_4.x_dat...

(Admittedly, they are mixing messages by using "USB4 SuperSpeed {Bandwidth}" as marketing names for "SuperSpeed 20" and "SuperSpeed 40".)

But the fact that just about no one uses the USB-IF Marketing Names and instead reverts to easily confused "USB {SpecNumber}" branding is an interesting marketing failure by USB. (Not necessarily a technical failure of their specs.)

> On the port itself, sure, but if I'm buying a laptop online then it's pretty important what type of port it has, so saying "USB C T2" is a lot more useful than just "USB T2". How would I even know what silhuette the port has?

That's a slight goal post move from your previous comment about what to mark Ports/Cables. Sure, if you need to mark online materials you need to include port types. But it's still redundant on a physical port or cable to mark the port type when you are staring right at the port type.

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 naming scheme is quite obvious once you start to think about it.

* USB 3.0 only supports the one SuperSpeed data transfer mode.

* USB3.1 was released, and it specifies two distinct data transfer modes: the legacy Gen1 mode and the novel Gen2 mode.

* USB3.2 is released, and it supports four transfer modes: the legacy Gen1 and Gen2 modes from USB3.1, and two new SuperSpeed+ modes which are 2x and 4x faster than Gen2.

But then why rename 3.0 to 3.1 then 3.2? And now with USB4, everything is USB4. If I remember the upcoming standard correctly, your cheap USB-C cable only doing 420 Mb/s (USB 2 speeds) is now USB4! For free!

If a USB 3.0 cable can suddenly become USB 3.1 (or 3.2) overnight, then what's the point of versions? And what's with "Gen #" at the end? Because a consumer is easily going to be able to see that a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 is better than a USB 3.2 Gen 1 cable? Or maybe the sellers will just not advertise the "Gen #" portion? According to the Q&A section of this Samsung external drive[0], the difference between this and a USB 3.1 drive is nothing but the model number.

</rant>

The USB Consortium has been overrun by marketing that thinks that making things more confusing (read: tricking) is better for the consumer.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-256GB-Extreme-Solid-State/dp/...

> 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.

> I'm not talking about the standards, but the marketing names. "USB 3.0" is now "USB 3.2 Gen 1"

No, it's not.

If you implement it from the legacy USB 3.0 spec then you don't care about it. It's SuperSpeed, and that's it.

If instead you implement it to comply with the USB3.1 spec then you have two separate transfer modes specified in the 3.1 standard: the legacy Gen1 and the newly-added Gen2.

If instead you implement it based on the USB 3.2 spec then that standard specifies four distinct transfer modes: the Gen1 specified in USB3.2, the Gen2 specified in USB3.2, and the new ones.

> just because the USB Consortium said so.

Who exactly do you think the USB consortium is? I mean, how do you think a standard is put together?

> No, it's not.

Yes, it is.

> If instead you implement it to comply with the USB3.1 spec then you have two separate transfer modes specified in the 3.1 standard: the legacy Gen1 and the newly-added Gen2.

No. If your device only supports 5 Gb/sec speeds, it's USB 3.0, yes. "SuperSpeed" and all that jazz. But with USB 3.2, it's now (magically) USB 3.2 Gen 1[0]:

> Under this rebranding, the standard previously known as USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 Gen 1 will now be called USB 3.2 Gen 1. Furthermore, the standard previously known as USB 3.1 Gen 2 will now be renamed to USB 3.2 Gen 2.

Yes, there's different transfer speeds, but if you only support 5 Gb/sec, you're a "Gen 1" device. If you're arguing that implementing USB 3.1 mandates support of the 10 Gb/sec mode, you're wrong. If that was the case, there'd be no point of this "Gen" nonsense because a 20 Gb/sec device would just be "USB 3.2" and a 5 Gb/sec device would be "USB 3.0".

Remember the whole debacle a few weeks ago about HDMI 2.1 essentially just being HDMI 2.0? Why would they do that other than to confuse? The only reason for this (USB) stupid naming is to confuse consumers into thinking that their 5 Gb/sec device is "top of the line" because it supports "USB 3.2" or "USB4".

For example, here's a "USB 3.2 Gen 1" flash drive.[1] It's a 5 Gb/sec flash drive, but it's 3.2 instead of the more appropriate 3.0. Why? To confuse.

> Who exactly do you think the USB consortium is? I mean, how do you think a standard is put together?

I think it's a consortium of companies. Many of which have marketing teams. And I'm right.[2]

[0]: https://www.msi.com/blog/new-usb-standard-usb-3-2-gen-1-gen2...

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-128GB-Ultra-Flash-Drive/dp/B0...

[2]: https://www.usb.org/members

> No. If your device only supports 5 Gb/sec speeds, it's USB 3.0, yes.

That's not how things work.

Devices are implemented while targeting a standard.

If you implement a USB 3.0 device then you do not support any data transfer mode capable of doing more than 5Gb/s. If you're a customer looking for more than 5Gb/s and you see that a device is only USB3.0 then you already know that it won't cut it.

That's the whole point of this submission. M1 macs don't support USB 3.1, only USB 3.0. Why? because they patently don't support the transfer speeds made possible by the new data transfer mode introduced in USB 3.1.

> That's the whole point of this submission. M1 macs don't support USB 3.1, only USB 3.0. Why? because they patently don't support the transfer speeds made possible by the new data transfer mode introduced in USB 3.1.

M1 macs support USB4.

USB specs define multiple transmission modes and speeds from port to port over a cable that one can support. They define alt modes you can support.

Separately there are conformances and marks. E.g. if your cable supports transfer according to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 in our lab, you can _market it_ as Superspeed 20Gbps, put the logo on the connectors, etc.

So the argument would be that Apple M1 doesn’t support Superspeed 10Gbps.

Which, as an aside, I’ll need a lot more than one person testing with a single (likely non-conformant) cable before I will believe.

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 3.0 didn't have this mess

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.

That was a different mess that people ignored entirely.

The x.y numbers were not a mess until 3.1

> 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 submission is to showcase how M1 macs are only capable of drawing a lower data transfer speed unlike the new Mac Studio, thus proving that the M1 macs don't support USB 3.1 Gen2, aka SuperSpeed+.

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.

> Feel free to point out exactly which argument you feel was ignored.

The retroactive renaming of speed+versions. I'm not talking about the Mac.

> If you pick up a USB3.1 device you know beforehand it won't support SuperSpeed+ 2x or 4x.

My whole argument is that this confusion wouldn't be an issue if the USB Consortium had reserved USB 3.1 for 10 Gb/sec speeds exclusively. In other words, this:

    3.0: 5 Gb/s  "SuperSpeed"
    3.1: 10 Gb/s "SuperSpeed+"
    3.2: 20 Gb/s "SuperSpeed++"

That, and that alone (with none of the "Gen" nonsense) would avoid confusion. Then, if I pick up a USB 3.1 device, I would know it's 10 Gb/sec "SuperSpeed+" without having to use a stupid "generation" number. But no, the USB Consortium decided to deprecate 3.0 and 3.1 because all new devices are "3.2 Gen whatever". That's confusion.

Versions are not speeds.

3.2 continues to describe everything in 3.0, which means it continues to describe how to make devices supporting 5 gbps over USB-A/B

Well, the argument is that versions not being speeds anymore is the problem and it would've been easier if they were. Like they are in Wi-Fi for example.

If you use the smallest version number that fits your device, then you avoid confusion.

Your vendor should never have said 3.0 or 3.1 or 3.2. They should have said Superspeed.

There’s no point complaining that the engineering spec versioning strategy is confusing, when no consumers should have been exposed to it. The problem is squarely on manufacturers and the tech press.

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

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.

USB 3.0 also specifies lower speeds. They didn't need to use "Gen" then, and nothing changed to make them need it after.

Nobody cares if multiple speeds are "introduced by USB3". If 3.0 introduces one speed, and 3.1 introduces a different speed, people can understand that just fine.

Even if you do want to focus on "introduced by USB3", then you just need "3.[generation]" or "3 Gen [generation]". Not "3.[spec revision] Gen [generation]"

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?

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.

Found the USB-IF member.