Sgbaird - How long can a USB cable be? The longest USB cable I've seen sold is 16 feet. Is there a way to get around this without buying a new computer? I assume according to your article here that my computer must have the older USB 1.1 (?). I have a 2003 Sony Vaio desk top and need to use USB 2.0 to run a new video capturing device (Easy Cap).
Question: Does a usb CABLE have to be usb 2.0 compliant in order to make use of the benefits of usb 2.0 in peripheral usb 2.0 devices? Or, are usb cables all the same? If I buy a computer that has 3.0 USB ports will my external hard drive work connected to these ports. I have an external Seagate Hard Drive connected to a USB 2.0 port. My computer has an old style usb port and I need a 2.0 port. USB 3.0 was introduced in 2008, providing much faster speeds than the 2.0. The 3.0 standard maintained backward compatibility, including "hi-speed" and "full speed" rates to function with older USB 2.0 devices. It introduced new connections that included more pins, allowing for "SuperSpeed" data transfer rates of up to 5 gigabits per second (Gbit/s). In 2008, USB 3.0 was officially adopted as the new standard for this format. One of the most popular and convenient USB 2.0 gadgets is a memory stick, which can store data for easy transfer between machines. Native components also make use of this interface, such as mice, keyboards, and external hard drives, as well as printers and networking hardware. Common DevicesĪside from media players, many other external devices use these data ports, including digital cameras, mobile phones, and newer cable boxes. USB cables are used to connect devices - such as printers, keyboards and music players - to computers. A bottleneck is a point at which data is slowed down by limitations in transfer rate, such as the slower speeds of 1.0 ports, even though the devices themselves can send and receive data much faster. Memory sticks and external hard drives became much more powerful with the 2.0 standards, since they often ran into "bottlenecks" with older transfer rates. Since this standard is typically backward compatible, the 2.0 version includes the older "full speed" and "low speed" rates to function with 1.0 devices.Įven in USB 2.0, "low speed" was often used for data transfers between a computer and a mouse or keyboard, except for high-end gaming devices. USB 2.0 improved upon these with "hi-speed" transfer rates of 480 Mbit/s. In 1.0 and 1.1, there were two speeds available: "low speed" with a rate of 1.5 megabits per second (Mbit/s) and "full speed" at 12 Mbit/s. When USB standards change from an existing version to a newer version, as they did from 1.1 to USB 2.0, the major improvement is often the speed at which data transfers between connected devices.
USB hubs can be used to connect USB 2.0 devices to older computers.