C# Concurrency - Preferred approach to long running tasks

Question

When there needs to be an I/O listener running throughout an applications lifetime, what concurrency model is preferred with C# 5.0 running on the 4.5 framework?

I've settled on the idea that a producer-consumer pattern would be best for handling what I receive, but what infrastructure should support it?

Would a simple Thread thread = new Thread(ThreadStart(method)) be advised? or perhaps a Task or Async/Await model would be preferred?

It is a bit of a quick fire question, but as I'm early in the design, I'd prefer to make sure the foundation is strong. My gut reaction coming from other languages is that a simple thread running in the background is best, but the plethora of parallel frameworks in C# has thrown me off course.

If of any relevance, the poll time in my application would be handled by the I/O read timeout.

Update:

The I/O I refer to is an FTDI device, where bytes may be pushed by the device to the PC at any moment, depending on the state of the on-board controller. As a result, I always need to be ready to pickup the data and process it. The API I'm using is based on the D2XX DLL provided by the FTDI vendor.

Answer 1

If I interpret your "I/O listener" correctly, then you should just always have a continuous asynchronous read operation going. No thread is necessary.