USB abbreviated as Universal Serial Bus is a port commonly used to connect input devices such as Keyboards, Mouse, and flash drives to the Computers or Laptops. It is invented in the year 1994 by an Indian engineer Ajay Bhat. After a long journey, it is still one of the most depended input methods which is widely used in many of our devices. Even if the new technologies including Lightning cable, USB 3.1 and USB OTG came into existence, the traditional USB’s are still widespread throughout the globe.
USB Devices we commonly use
Here are some of the most commonly used USB devices in our daily life. Millions of users taking advantage of the USB ports for their daily needs, even to copy a single image to another storage!
- Digital Camera
- External Drives
- iPod and some Apple devices
- MP3 player
- Joystick
- Jump drive aka Thumb drive
- Keyboard
- Keypad
- Microphone
- Mouse
- Printer
- Scanner
- Smartphone
- Tablet
- Webcams
USB Technologies
As the technology being developed, the USB technology also improved a lot. Here are some of the USB technologies invented so far.
- USB 1.x: It is most probably one of the very first USB technologies invented. It supports Data Transfer rates of 12 Mbps and is capable of supporting up to 127 peripheral devices.
- USB 2.0: It is the most common form of USB technologies which we use on our keyboards, mouse, and most of the flash drives. It is also known as hi-speed USB and is capable of supporting a transfer rate of up to 480 megabits per second (Mbps), or 60megabytes per second (MBps). The USB 2.0 port also support the earlier versions of the technology.
- USB 3.0: It is also known as SuperSpeed USB which was first introduced in November 2009 by Buffalo Technology. USB 3.0 has faster data transfer rates and bandwidth when compared to the previous versions. It supports transfer rates of up to 5.0 gigabits per second (Gbps), or 640 megabytes per second (MBps). If you have an External Hard Drive, it might be utilizing the USB 3.0 for faster transfer rates.
- USB 3.1: It is also known as SuperSpeed+ USB, was introduced on July 31, 2013. USB 3.1 has transfer rates of up to 10 Gbps. It is used in some hard drives for faster data transfer than the 3.0.
- USB Type-C: It is coming with a reversible plug which could be connected on either side. The 24-pin reversible connector has a very speedy transfer rate. It is commonly used in smartphones and tablets.