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Comment by faller | Hacker News Reader

> 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+.

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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.

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