USB 2.0 vs. USB 3.0: What’s the Difference?

It has a maximum transfer rate of 480Mbps, and USB host ports can deliver up to 500 milliamps.

USB 3.0 was released in 2008 and significantly upgraded transfer rates and power delivery.

usb 3 port close up view

Valentino Nobile/Shutterstock

At 5Gbps, it’s ten times faster than USB 2.0.

It also supplies more current at 900 milliamps, which means it can support power-hungry hard disks and SSDs.

Furthermore,USB 3.0 has additional pins for faster data transfer.

USB Device Tree View opening screen

Using them, USB 3.0 can read and write data simultaneously.

This is called full-duplex.

The additional pins are tiny and are placed deep inside the USB pin.

USB device tree viewer showing a freshly plugged in USB device

What Is the USB Color Code, and What Do the Colors Mean?

Both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 connectors appear alike from the outside.

But there are a couple of ways to find the USB punch in.

USB device tree viewer showing fine details of plugged in USB device

Color

USB Specification

Max.

Thankfully, there are a couple of ways to tell if this is the case, starting with Windows.

Unlike the built-in Windows equipment Manager, it shows the USB standard of the connected peripherals.

Linux terminal showing the output of lsusb command

In this example, I plugged in a USB video capture card.

The manufacturer named the peripheral “MACROSILICON USB 3.0 Capture”.

But the truth is that this is a much slower USB 2.0 machine.

Linux terminal showing the output of lsusb command after pluggin in a new USB device

The output will show the true specification of the USB peripheral.

Otherwise, you’ll be stuck with sluggish devices!

Linux terminal showing the output of lsusb and bcdusb command