between devices. Early USB cables and connectors could only transfer data at slow speeds of up to about 12 Mbps, until the year 2000 when the USB 2.0 was introduced. That is when the drive toward higher device speeds began to grow quickly. In this article, the necessary detailed knowledge of the different types of USB connectors and cables, as well as their capabilities, will be discussed to provide the information needed to make the right selection for a specific application.
USB versions and their capabilities
USB 2.0 offered 480 Mbps to its users, a speed increase over 40 times the original USB offering in the 1990s, which could only handle 12 Mbps. The newer version was designed with four connector wires and could interconnect devices with cable lengths up to 30 meters (98 feet). Although they were considered capable of high-speed data transfer, these cables could not support video. The connectors and cables could support power with up to 500 mA of current, whereas the older version could not. The four-wire cable used white and green wires for data transfer, while red and black wires were used for power — red for 5 volts and black for ground. USB 2.0 can easily be identified by the black interior of the connector port. These updated USB capabilities
allowed for greater flexibility in multiple applications at the time and are still relevant today. Eight years after the introduction of the USB 2.0, the USB 3.0 became available. The 3.0 version provided users with even higher data speeds — 10 times higher, to be exact — and are considered SuperSpeed devices. These cables and connectors can support video data transfers. The USB 3.0 cables and connectors were designed to transfer data at speeds of 4,800 Mbps (nearly 5 GB). This super- fast transfer speed rate came in handy when used for backing up or transferring large amounts of
data to and from a hard drive or controller. The additional wires are used to provide two-way communications simultaneously. Professional photographers are keen on using USB 3.0 connectors due to their need to transfer high- resolution images between multiple devices as well as uploading to high-speed network computers. The 3.0 USB version was faster but could only be interconnected to devices within an 18-meter (59-foot) cable length. The unit’s nine-wire connectors, instead of the USB 2.0’s four-wire connectors, provided the right environment for the increase in speed and
we get technical
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