New USB 3.0 enhancement to bring 10 Gbps transfer speeds

The USB 3.0 Promoter group has announced the development of a SuperSpeed USB enhancement which will add a much higher data rate delivering up to twice the data transfer performance of USB 3.0-  although the group isn’t going to give it a new name, it will still be USB 3.0.

The new enhancement will allow backwards compatibility, but the group says that it will help to make data encoding more efficient which will lead to higher throughput and improved I/O power efficiency.

This new standard will not only allow for higher data transfer rates, but also ability to stream HD Audio/Video and network traffic via a single cable. This standard is currently being showcased at CES and should debut in Mid- 2013, one can only speculate if Thunderbolt will take a nosedive and disappear since the cost of a Thunderbolt cable and supported devices are still too high and getting a cheap non-branded Thunderbolt cable is currently not possible.

What was not clarified in the USB 3.0 press release is the power scenario. The current USB 3.0 standard sacrifices the ability to transfer enough power when 5Gbps of throughput is used and it only supports devices which need up to 4.5W, otherwise it will require a power source (like the pictured Seagate Backup Plus 3TB dock connector above).

The promoters have shown BSN that it was transferring video over USB to a monitor, but it was also charging the laptop from that same cable. This was possible because the newer USB 3.0 standard enabled 65 watts of power supply.

There was no time frame given for when we can expect new devices based on this new standard.