USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 State of the Ecosystem Review: Where Does 20Gbps USB Stand in 2020?
by Ganesh T S on October 5, 2020 10:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Western Digital
- SanDisk
- ASMedia
- USB 3.2 Gen 2x2
Device Features and Characteristics
A quick overview of the internal capabilities of the storage devices is given by CrystalDiskInfo. The drive information doesn't change based on the host. This also serves to verify that S.M.A.R.T access (and despite not being mentioned explicitly, TRIM support also) is available irrespective of the port that the drives connect to.
| Drive Information |
 |
CrystalDiskInfo confirms the internal SSDs being used in the WD_BLACK P50 and the SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD v2 to be the SN750E and SN730E respectively. Prior to looking at the usage characteristics of the various drives, it is helpful to compare their specifications and also take a look at the internals.
| Direct-Attached Storage Characteristics | ||
| Aspect | ||
| Upstream Port | USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C | USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C |
| Bridge / Controller | ASMedia ASM2364 SanDisk 20-82-007011 |
ASMedia ASM2364 SanDisk 20-82-007011 |
| Flash | SanDisk BiCS 4 96L 3D TLC | SanDisk BiCS 3 64L 3D TLC |
| Power | Bus Powered | Bus Powered |
| Physical Dimensions | 57.34 mm x 110.26 mm x 10.22 mm | 62 mm x 118 mm x 14 mm |
| IP Rating | IP55 | N/A |
| Weight | 85 grams (without cable) | 115 grams (without cable) |
| Cable | USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C to Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C to Type-A (30cm each) |
USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C to Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C to Type-A (30cm each) |
| S.M.A.R.T Passthrough | Yes | Yes |
| UASP Support | Yes | Yes |
| TRIM Passthrough | Yes | Yes |
| Encryption Support | Hardware (SanDisk SecureAccess App) | N/A |
The key difference is that our review samples have a SN750-class NVMe SSD equipped with 64L 3D TLC in the WD_BLACK P50, and 96L 3D TLC in the SanDisk Extreme PRO v2. The former doesn't have hardware encryption enabled (and even software encryption with the WD Security app is not available). The latter uses the SanDisk SecureAccess App to activate the hardware encryption.
The teardown galleries above shows the significant amount of thermal design in both drives. The presence of the ASMedia ASM2364 bridge chip in both drives is also confirmed. The SanDisk Extreme PRO has a significant chunk of aluminum directly in touch with the thermal pad / covering for the heat-generating components of the internal boards. A clasp is also seen on the Type-C port to help achieve the IP55 rating. In contrast, the WD_BLACK P50 appears over-engineered with a large number of thermal pads, a separate aluminum heat-sink, and a thermal pad on top of that heat sink. Since the underside of the P50 is plastic, a metal flap is also placed between it and the internal SSD assembly. Overall, the thermal design appears fairly effective, and its evaluation report is provided in a subsequent section.
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Eric_WVGG - Tuesday, October 6, 2020 - link
On a related note, I would love to see you guys do some kind of investigation into why we're five years into this standard and one still cannot buy an actual USB-C hub (i.e. not a port replicator).hubick - Tuesday, October 6, 2020 - link
A 3.2 hub with gen 2 ports and a 2x2 uplink would be cool!I wanted a 10gbps / gen 2 hub and got the StarTech HB31C3A1CS, which at least has a USB-C gen 2 uplink and a single USB-C gen 2 port (plus type A ports). Don't know if you can do any better than that right now.
repoman27 - Tuesday, October 6, 2020 - link
Although it's still not exactly what you're looking for, I've tried (unsuccessfully) to get people to understand what a unicorn the IOGEAR GUH3C22P is. Link: https://www.iogear.com/product/GUH3C22PIt's a 5-port USB3 10Gbps hub with a tethered USB Type-C cable on the UFP (which supports up to 85W USB PD source), two (2!) downstream facing USB Type-C ports (one of which supports up to 100W USB PD sink), and two USB Type-A ports (one of which supports up to 7.5W USB BC).
serendip - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
No alt mode support like for DisplayPort. I haven't found a portable type-C hub that supports DisplayPort alt mode over downstream type-C ports although some desktop docks support it.stephenbrooks - Tuesday, October 6, 2020 - link
What if I want a USB 20Gbps port on the front of my computer?Can I get a USB-C front panel and somehow connect the cable internally to the PCI-E USB card?
abufrejoval - Tuesday, October 6, 2020 - link
I am building hyperconvergent clusters for fun and for work, the home-lab one out of silent/passive 32GB RAM, 1TB SATA-SSD J5005 Atoms, the next iteration most likely from 15Watt-TDP-NUCs, an i7-10700U with 64GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD in testing.Clusters need short-latency, high-bandwidth interconnects, Infiniband is a classic in data centers, but NUCs offer 1Gbit Ethernet pretty much exclusively, Intel struggling to do 2.5Gbit there while Thunderbolt and USB3/4 could do much better. Only they aren’t peer-to-peer and a TB 10Gbase-T adapter sets you back further than the NUC itself, while adding lots of latency and TCP/IP, while I want RDMA.
So could we please pause for a moment and think on how we can build fabrics out of USB-X? Thunderbolt/USB4 is already about PCIe lanes, but most likely with multi-root excluded to maintain market segmentation and reduce validation effort.
I hate how the industry keeps going to 90% of something really useful and then concentrating on 200% speed instead of creating real value.
repoman27 - Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - link
Uh, Thunderbolt and USB4 are explicitly designed to support host-to-host communications already. OS / software support can be a limiting factor, but the hardware is built for it.Existing off-the-shelf solutions:
https://www.dataonstorage.com/products-solutions/k...
https://www.gosymply.com/symplyworkspace
https://www.areca.com.tw/products/thunderbolt-8050...
http://www.accusys.com.tw/T-Share/
IP over Thunderbolt is also available:
https://thunderbolttechnology.net/sites/default/fi...™%20Networking%20Bridging%20and%20Routing%20Instructional%20White%20Paper.pdf
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/ip-thunde...
repoman27 - Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - link
Stupid Intel URL with ™ symbol. Let's try that again:https://thunderbolttechnology.net/sites/default/fi...
abufrejoval - Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - link
Let me tell you: You just made my day! Or more likely one or two week-ends!Not being a Mac guy, I had completely ignored Thunderbolt for a long time and never learned that it supported networking natively. From the Intel docs it looks a bit similar to Mellanox VPI and host-chaining: I can use 100Gbit links there without any switch to link three machines in a kind of “token ring” manner for Ethernet (these are hybrid adapters that would also support Infiniband, but drivers support is only support Ethernet for host-chaining). Unfortunately the effective bandwidth is only around 35GByte/s for direct hops and slows to 16GByte/s once it has to pass through another host: Not as much of an upgrade over 10Gbase-T as you’d hope for: I never really got into testing latencies, which is where the Infiniband personality of those adapters should shine.
And that’s where with TB I am hoping for significant improvements over Ethernet apart from native 40Gbit/s speed: Just right for Gluster storage!
I also used to try to get Ethernet over fiber-channel working years ago, when they were throwing out 4Gbit adapters in the data center, but even if it was specified as a standard, Ethernet over fiber never got driver support and at the higher speeds the trend went the other direction.
So I’ll definitely try to make the direct connection over TB3 work: CentOS8 should have kernel support for TB networking and the best news is that it doesn’t have to wait for TB4, but should work with TB3, too.
I’ve just seen what seemed like an incredibly cheap 4-way TB switch recommended by Anton Shilov on the TomsHardware side of this enterprise, which unfortunately is only on pre-order for now (https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderbolt-hu... but supposed to support TB networking. Since the NUCs are single port TB3 only, that should still do the trick and be upgradable to TB4 for just around $150… The 5Gbit USB3 Aquantia NIC wasn’t much cheaper and even the 2.5Gbit USB3 NIC are still around $40.
Exciting, exciting all that: Thank you very much for those links!
abufrejoval - Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - link
...except... I don't think that "switch" will be supporting multiple masters, same as USB.If it did, Intel would have shot themselves in the foot: 40Gbit networking on NUCs and laptops with little more than passive ables, that's almost as bad as adding a system management mode on 80486L and finding that it can be abused to implement a hypervisor (Mendel and Diane started VMware with that trick).
Yet that's exactly what consumers really thirst for.