I recently acquired a 40 GB external USB hard drive, since my computer’s pre-installed 4 GB was almost 95% used up. The USB drive is designed for a USB 2.0 connection (up to 480 Mbps data rate) and is backwards-compatible with USB 1.1. (The drive’s data rate for USB 1.1 media is 12 Mbps.) My computer has the USB 1.1 port, so although it is not as fast as my internal hard drives, the speed is tolerable. Anyway, the question I had wanted to ask is this: approximately how soon do you think that new computers will start shipping with the USB 2.0 ports (instead of the USB 1.1 ports)? The reason I ask is because eventually I will be acquiring a new computer and when that happens will want to take advantage of the USB 2.0 data rate of my hard drive. I know that the USB 2.0 standard was recently ratified as a standard, and that machines with FireWire ports are selling but not USB 2.0 machines yet. Also, I read that Microsoft is not planning to add USB 2.0 functionality to Windows XP because of the USB 2.0 standard ratification was too late to be incorporated into Windows XP, so how does this factor into the equation (or does it)?
