What is USB?

Knowing what USB is will help you to be a more effective computer because you need to teach others and whose know if someone may one day ask you the meaning of that when you don’t know. That is why is the necessity to read this article.

Before the advent of USB, the most common methods of connecting a device to a computer was through either a serial port or a parallel port.

A serial port is basically an interface ( a meeting place where to subsystems meet and exchange information ) on a computer system with which information is transferred in or out one bit at a time.

Here, the information or data is sent via a single wire, that is bits of information are sent one after the other.

Examples of devices that use serial ports are modems, serial printers, bar code readers, pumps etc.

In contrast to a serial port, parallel port transfers bits simultaneously. Here, information or data are sent via more than one wires on the port. Most common types of devices that use parallel ports include printers and scanners.

Universal serial Bus commonly and its architecture has changed over time since its invention. This is the normal port on your computer where you connect external peripheral devices typically your pen drive. USB (universal serial bus) was developed as an option to serial and parallel data transfer protocols. Among the series of inventions are

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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN USB 2.0 AND USB 3.0

In terms of speed, USB 2.0 has a speed up to 480 Mbps, where USB 3.0 has a speed up to 5 Gbps

In terms of signalling method USB, 2.0 can only send or receive data at a time (half-duplex) whereas USB 3.0 can send and receive data at the same time (full duplex)

In terms of power USB 2.0 provides up to 500 mA whereas 3.0 provides up to 900 mA

In terms of connectors colour, USB 2.0 is grey in colour whereas 3.0 is Blue in colour.