USB 3.2 is coming

USB is one of the greatest inventions in computing. If you are a younger computer user, you may not remember a time before USB devices. It was rather terrible. Sure, there were external devices, but they connected to the very slow serial or parallel ports. I had a parallel port Zip drive, for instance. Ugh. Most things were in card form, however, and Windows wouldn't make installations an easy affair. Remember IRQ conflicts? No? Consider yourself lucky. I still have nightmares.

Over the years, USB has improved dramatically, with the latest connection, Type-C, solving the biggest issue -- a reversible connector. Not to mention, the newest specification, USB 3.1 generation 2, is insanely fast. In other words, life is good for consumers wanting external devices. Today, however, The USB 3.0 Promoter Group announces that things will be getting even better. Why? USB 3.2 is on the way.

"While USB hosts and devices were originally designed as single-lane solutions, USB Type-C cables were designed to support multi-lane operation to ensure a path for scalable performance. New USB 3.2 hosts and devices can now be designed as multi-lane solutions, allowing for up to two lanes of 5 Gbps or two lanes of 10 Gbps operation. This enables platform developers to continue advancing USB products to fit their customers' needs by effectively doubling the performance across existing cables. For example, a USB 3.2 host connected to a USB 3.2 storage device will now be capable of realizing over 2 GB/sec data transfer performance over an existing USB Type-C cable that is certified for SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps," says The USB 3.0 Promoter Group.

The group further says, "For users to obtain the full benefit of this performance increase, a new USB 3.2 host must be used with a new USB 3.2 device and the appropriate certified USB Type-C cable. This update is part of the USB performance roadmap and is specifically targeted to developers at this time. Branding and marketing guidelines will be established after the final specification is published. The USB 3.2 specification is now in a final draft review phase with a planned formal release in time for the USB Developer Days North America event in September 2017."

The USB 3.0 Promoter Group shares the following features of 3.2.

• Two-lane operation using existing USB Type-C cables
• Continued use of existing SuperSpeed USB physical layer data rates and encoding techniques
• Minor update to hub specification to address increased performance and assure seamless transitions between single and two-lane operation

While the specification is planned for release in September, it will still be a long time before consumer devices will be on store shelves. Hell, it will be even longer before consumers truly have a need. After all, many external drives -- both SSD and HDD -- aren't even saturating USB 3.1 gen 2 yet. Not to mention, things like keyboards and mice won't benefit from it. When devices finally become available, it will largely be an enthusiast affair, with it trickling down to "normal" users later.

Are you excited for USB 3.2 or are you totally content with 3.1 gen 2? Tell me in the comments.

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