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ventuss

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 9, 2011
372
19
Can the new Airport Extreme become a USB 3 compatible device with a firmware upgrade? Or is it build with USB 2 components?
 
Nope, USB 3 is a hardware specification that requires certain chipsets that missing AE
 
Do you think Apple is going to real ease a USB 3 model as soon or is the present Airport Extreme a nice offer?
 
Do you think Apple is going to real ease a USB 3 model as soon or is the present Airport Extreme a nice offer?

I doubt it. The current model is very recent.

USB3 would really no offer any improvement as any drive attached to the device will not even saturate a USB2 connection. That and the fact USB3 is known to sometimes interfere with wifi signals I suspect is the reason Apple did not put a USB3 chipset in there.
 
Do you think Apple is going to real ease a USB 3 model as soon or is the present Airport Extreme a nice offer?

That would be a waste of money passed onto the consumer. Like Weaselboy said, it cannot saturate a USB 2 connection. It would be like buying a Ferrari (USB 3) and driving in a parking lot in first gear (hard drive).
 
I doubt it. The current model is very recent.

USB3 would really no offer any improvement as any drive attached to the device will not even saturate a USB2 connection. That and the fact USB3 is known to sometimes interfere with wifi signals I suspect is the reason Apple did not put a USB3 chipset in there.

Wait what? IIRC USB 2.0 maxes out at around 40 MB/s and modern USB 3.0 HDDs can do 100 MB/s+ Or does network transfer slow everything down?
 
Wait what? IIRC USB 2.0 maxes out at around 40 MB/s and modern USB 3.0 HDDs can do 100 MB/s+ Or does network transfer slow everything down?

It is a combination of both. Look at this test of file transfer rates between servers over GB ethernet. That center 41MBs write speed rate is from a RAID server array to the C drive in another server over GB ethernet. Far more powerful hardware than a Time Capsule.

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