USB 3.0 Support

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mpack
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by mpack »

USB 2.0 is in the closed source extpack. Is USB 3.0 likely to be more open? Or do you just want the guys spending hours uselessly browsing the OSE sources? :)

Yeah guys, it's an easter egg: keep looking for it. :twisted:
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by noteirak »

but... but... but... it is May already! It must have escape! What do we do now!....

Ok i'm out :arrow:
Hyperbox - Virtual Infrastructure Manager - https://apps.kamax.lu/hyperbox/
Manage your VirtualBox infrastructure the free way!
Ramshankar
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by Ramshankar »

Heh, didn't mean to raise any false hopes - just saying that while we cannot make official statements (most) of the source is available anyway.
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Eduard1974
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by Eduard1974 »

So that's it. No USB 3 support. My Asus laptop only has usb 3 ports, so that's why it is not working. No work around. Virtualbox is wasting my time.

I must change to VMWare then. It's shocking that Oracle is almost 5 years behind in technology. USB 3 is out since 2008.
mpack
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by mpack »

Demand your money back!
Ramshankar
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by Ramshankar »

There are 2 things being requested here.

1. Some people just want their USB 3 ports to work for USB 2/1 devices, which should, for the most part but apparently there is trouble on certain hosts. This is being looked into and is less work than 2.

2. Supporting real USB3 only devices plugged into USB 3 ports. This is much harder to do and involves a lot of new code. Again, somehow nobody seems to be contributing but just demanding features and making it out as though we're ignoring requests. We're not, if we are not actively replying to something it usually means we're not allowed to talk about it, or we've already stated our position and it hasn't changed or we're busy writing code. Most likely it's the last one.

Please see this ticket: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/8873#comment:18 <-- Comment 18, We've already hinted that USB 3 support (i.e. a full virtual XHCI controller) for talking to USB 3 devices is work in progress with no ETA.

I cannot state anything more substantial at this point. We are well aware of the request and the issues/limitations of the current USB support.
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BuckStopsHere
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by BuckStopsHere »

So, it looks very much VirtualBox USB support for any Win Host that has a USB3 host controller, is broken. All devices are locked in an unfathomable mess. And perhaps this should be advertised as such for now.
I and many others consider the Virtual Box team as friends, the good guys, (well at least until Oracle came along). They have done a great job and like most of us are having a real hard time keeping on top of commercial and hobby demands.
The ONLY alternative appears to be VMware at $150, not free but can be made to work (I guess that price will rise soon).

For me, VB USB has been broken for a few years 4 PC's all windows XP/7 hosts, generally once one runs out of ports and hubs to plug USB into alternatives must be found. I now use windows shares for my USB thumb drives on the host windows tool (a working USB port) and then mount a share on my Linux/Win clients. Clunky but works for memory, not so good for streaming devices like emulators etc where, I now pay the extra for Ethernet devices. (Probably cheaper to get VMware :).

Anyway, I would like to thank the guys at Oracle for trying, but appeal to the whole community with questions:
Does anyone out there have a USB3 root hub based Windows (any flavor) host where USB actually works reliably v1.1 or v2.0?
Is there a way to vote, in a way Oracle shareholders would actually get to hear of or care?
Is there a road map with a USB investment pin on it?
Does McAfee DLP impact this issue?

Another observation . . .
Every so often my USB bus appears to reset, could this lock out our devices assigned to a VM. VB would have to see this and force a cycle through port allocation back to host then back to the client.

Getting USB3 support would be like Christmas for a 4 year old! Heck, I would pay $150 for that, rather than move all my VM's to VMware.

Many thanks

Steve

P.S I wonder what proportion of Windows host comments are about USB or are USB related - biggest issue and could use it's own forum. Just an observation.
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by mpack »

This is not the place for an anti business rant. Any further responses along those lines will be deleted without further comment. The topic here is "USB 3.0 Support".

And in case none of you have noticed, 4.3.0 added support for USB 2.x devices in host USB 3.x ports. Direct support for USB 3.x inside the guest no doubt has the small problem of how to continue supporting popular guest OS's that know nothing about USB 3.x. If you feel that the solution is easy then by all means contribute code - if you're a non-programmer then I'm sure that money would also help.
Ramshankar
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by Ramshankar »

BuckStopsHere wrote:I and many others consider the Virtual Box team as friends, the good guys, (well at least until Oracle came along). They have done a great job and like most of us are having a real hard time keeping on top of commercial and hobby demands.
Most of us "good guys" from the innotek days are still employed by Oracle and working on VirtualBox. ;)

It's unfortunate that large corporations often cause such concerns (be it Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Apple etc.) but we can't really do much about that, we continue focusing on VirtualBox as always.

As mentioned in the bug ticket, USB 3 (virtual XHCI controller) is work-in-progress... we can't really say much more at this point.
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Grower
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by Grower »

*EDIT NOTE* - this is not a long-term or stable solution, but rather a way to use storage on a USB if you must... in my case, if you read another post below, you'll understand why I was so adamant about using a USB storage device. Use with caution, taking into account what mpack added in subsequent post replies.

This post hasn't been touched in a while.... but here I am, taking a Linux + Cert class using VB to work on Fedora 13 on my USB 3.0 Ubuntu Laptop. Poor me. Well, after many hours of searching the web without answers, I was able to create a workaround to use a USB Flashdrive at least for the purposes of finishing my assignments for this class. This may not serve everyone's needs out there, but it may serve a few. Here is how I did it.... Using VB 4.3.16 for Linux.

Put your USB Flash Drive into your computer.

Open up VB and go to Settings.

Under Setting, click the Storage section from the list on the left.

Then click on Controller:SATA under the Storage Tree window/box so that it is highlighted.

Then click the blue disk drive with the green plus on it to the right of (Controller:SATA) ... as you hover over it with your mouse it will say "Add Hard Disk"

When the Window pops up click on the Create new disk button

At the next window, click the button for "HDD (Parallels Hard Disk)" ... other options may work, this is the one I chose after VHD Failed.

Then clicked Next

Next window, name this sucker whatever you want (I left it to default settings), and then click on the little file icon with the green up-arrow on it to the right of the name field. This should bring up a files explorer box, navigate to your USB drive and click Save.

Now you need to specify the size... Then click Create at the bottom.

The new HDD should now show up under the Controller:SATA section in the Storage Tree window.

Start your VM normally. You may have to go in and format and mount the drive manually once in the machine.
Last edited by Grower on 29. Sep 2014, 16:17, edited 1 time in total.
mpack
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by mpack »

If you were to follow that suggestion then I wouldn't use Parallels, it's a very limited format. In fact the two worst choices on that list are VHD and Parallels. Use VDI, which is the native VirtualBox format.

The SATA mentions are irrelevant. The nature of the drive controller doesn't affect where the media can be located.

But, I wouldn't follow the suggestion. Locating virtual HDs on removable media can end in tears - especially if the media is formatted with FAT (4GB file size limit). If you only want to use the USB drive for storage then a far simpler solution is to define the drive as a shared folder.
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by rpmurray »

Grower wrote:The new HDD should not show up under the Controller:SATA section in the Storage Tree window.
If the new HDD does not show up under the Controller:SATA section, where will it be?
mpack
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by mpack »

s /not/ /now/ I suspect.
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by Grower »

mpack wrote:If you were to follow that suggestion then I wouldn't use Parallels, it's a very limited format. In fact the two worst choices on that list are VHD and Parallels. Use VDI, which is the native VirtualBox format.

The SATA mentions are irrelevant. The nature of the drive controller doesn't affect where the media can be located.

But, I wouldn't follow the suggestion. Locating virtual HDs on removable media can end in tears - especially if the media is formatted with FAT (4GB file size limit). If you only want to use the USB drive for storage then a far simpler solution is to define the drive as a shared folder.
For the purposes of the certification class I had to have a drive to mount/umount and practice creating file systems, moving, and copying files and so forth. I wouldn't use this method for much more than that. As for format, I just wanted to make something work and those were the two I tried! If VDI is better, by all means use that! And, as mpack said, if it is for storage, then just use a shared folder! ... unfortunately, that wouldn't work for specific issue. I do find it interesting, however, that a USB3.0 port and device is readable by putting a virtual hard drive on it, but it won't mount it otherwise... I don't know the programming aspects of VB, but it seems you have to have to be more than half way there if it can access it this way...
mpack
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Re: USB 3.0 Support

Post by mpack »

Grower wrote:For the purposes of the certification class I had to have a drive to mount/umount and practice creating file systems, moving, and copying files and so forth.
You could do that by creating any VDI on any host drive. I don't see why the VDI had to be located on a USB flash drive, which is the subject of this discussion.
Grower wrote:I do find it interesting, however, that a USB3.0 port and device is readable by putting a virtual hard drive on it, but it won't mount it otherwise... I don't know the programming aspects of VB, but it seems you have to have to be more than half way there if it can access it this way...
Not very interesting really. One method lets the host retain ownership of a drive that already works for it, only exposing a network-ish sharing API; the other method requires the guest to grab ownership off an unwilling host, and implement a full driver stack, starting with a virtual USB3 controller or a USB2/USB3 translation layer (given that many legacy OS's don't know about USB3). One method can be got working quickly, the other will need a lot of work if it's possible at all. I'll leave readers to guess which is which!
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