If you take a closer look at the USB ports on various devices, you will find that the connectors on the inside differ in color. And this is not done for beauty: the color of the USB port indicates the standard that it supports, the USB interface specification, and other features of a particular port. In other words, you can quickly determine which generation of USB you are dealing with by color, without digging into the description of technical characteristics.
And now more about the purpose of each of the colors:
- White USB port – standard 1.0, the very first version of USB, which was developed in 1996. You may have seen a white port on old keyboards and mice – they are undemanding in terms of data transfer speed, because USB 1.0 can provide only 12 Mbps. At the moment, it is hopelessly outdated and not used.
- Black USB port – standard 2.0, was released in 2000 and boasted a much higher speed – up to 480 Mbps. The USB 2.0 connector is still used everywhere: in laptops, microphones, external hard drives, and hundreds of other devices.
- The blue USB port is standard 3.0, released in 2013 and turned out to be really high-speed. USB 3.0 is about 10 times faster than 2.0 – its speed can reach 5 Gb / s. Also, this standard supports two-way communication, which means it can read and write data at the same time.
- Turquoise USB port – 3.1 standard. An improved version of the previous connector, two-way communication and twice the speed – up to 10 Gb / s.
Now, guided by the colors, it will be easy to determine which of the connectors transmits data faster. However, do not forget about the technical nuance – the speed of the USB port when connected is always determined by the lowest standard. That is, if you connect a USB 2.0 flash drive to the blue USB 3.0 connector, the speed will be the same as in the 2.0 standard. For maximum speed, you will need a 3.0 capable device.
