As Microsoft’s BUILD conference get’s closer, the company is beginning to unveil more and more information and features about the new operating system. Today in a blog post at the official Windows 8 blog, Microsoft announced that they had been working on native USB 3.0 support.
Microsoft said, “Our design had to follow the revised 3.0 specification precisely in order to enable emerging USB 3.0 hardware. There are also billions of older USB devices that Windows must remain compatible with.” Microsoft have created a new USB software stack for Windows 8 while retaining compatibility for older devices. Microsoft continued to say, “We decided to start before there were any USB 3.0 devices by building ‘virtual’ devices. Virtual devices are software representations of real, physical USB hardware: the ports, the hubs, and other devices.”
Data transfer speeds between USB 3.0 and the desktop is supposed to be almost 10 times faster than the previous USB 2.0. Transferring high-def video clips from a USB 3.0 device can be done in just 80 seconds, those same files would have taken 15 minutes on a USB 2.0 device.
The blog post also added that they had also made a USB Test Tool called the Microsoft USB Test Tool (MUTT) which simulates a full range of behaviors between the device and the PC. The company have used this tool to find and correct errors with the new function.
