USB 3.0 Review : Advantages and Disadvantages

In this post I will review about USB 3.0. We are hearing about it anywhere now. But what is USB 3.0 and what is good and the bad part about it.


USB 3.0 first introduced in the end of 2008. It is obviously the fastest Universal Serial Bus (USB) by now as it speed can allow data transfer speed up to 5 Gbits/s or 625 MBytes per second. It is said to be 10x faster from the USB 2.0. As for the connector seems nothing differ from the USB 2.0 connector but the USB 3.0 connector has 5 more connecting pins placed deep inside the connector cover.

So lets see some of the advantages and disadvantages of USB 3.0.

The advantages of USB 3.0

• 10x faster than USB 2.0 and a max data transfer speed of upto 5Gbits/sec or about 640MB/sec. 
• USB 3.0 is fully compatible with USB 2.0 .
• Higher Power Supplied to the USB Devices, especially useful for Portable HDD’s. The USB 3.0 can provide a maximum power of 900mA, compared to USB 2.0 that can only provide 500mA power.
• Lower Power Consumption by the USB Devices. USB 3.0 also comes with better power saving features so your USB powered devices will consume less power when it is in idle mode.

The disadvantages of USB 3.0

• The motherboard’s included with USB 3.0 will be costly but the older technology price will go down.
• USB 3.0 is incompatible with USB 1.1
• USB 3.0 only supports a maximum cable length of 3 meters compared to 5 meters of USB 2.0
• Mobile phones and other gadgets which will use the Micro-B USB 3.0 connector will have a width of 12.25mm while the Micro-B USB 2.0 Connector is only 6.86mm wide
• Currently there are no OS available in the market which supports USB 3.0. Maybe there will an update when the technology began to spread.

Check out 3.0 also at: PCMag, Techie-Buzz

Writers note: Eventhough there seems a lot disadvantages than advantages, I am pretty sure they will fix it and make it is affordable to everyone and better than it is reviewed. I am going to get my desktop compatible with 3.0 later. 


So have you already use or have any comments about 3.0? Say it here. I want to hear it.