USB 3.0

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. It came into existence in January 1996 as USB 1.0. After that USB 1.1 & USB 2.0 were released. Now the era of USB 3.0 has arrived. USB 3.0 was released way back in 2008 but its still not so popular.

The major advantages of USB 3.0 are :-

• Super-Speed - USB 3.0 works at Super-Speed ( i.e. 5Gbps ~ 625MB/sec ) unlike USB 2.0 which works at High-Speed ( i.e. 60MB/sec ).
• Bidirectional - Unlike previous versions where data can only be piped in one direction at a time, USB 3.0 can read and write data simultaneously.
• Backward compatibility - Our existing USB 2.0 gear will work on version 3.0 ports and vice versa. We will be able to maximize our bandwidth when using a USB 3.0 cable with USB 3.0 devices and ports, otherwise plugging a 3.0 device into a 2.0 port or a 2.0 device into 3.0 a port will get us standard USB 2.0 data rates.
  Since the new interface has been carefully planned from the start to peacefully co-exist with its predecessor, the connector itself remains mostly the same with the four USB 2.0 contacts in the exact same location as before. Extra pins for the new lanes dedicated to transmit and receive SuperSpeed data are located on the back and only come into contact when mated with a proper USB 3.0 port.