Tip #150: USB Bandwidth
… for Codecs & Media
Tip #150: USB Bandwidth
Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com
Different versions of USB provide different amounts of bandwidth
The speed of USB has increased significantly since its initial release. For example, USB 1.0 was released January 15, 1996, with a maximum speed of 1.5 MB/second. Compare that to USB 4.0 which was released August 29, 2019, with a maximum speed of 5 GB/second! USB4 is based on the Thunderbolt 3 protocol.
However, recently, the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) renamed virtually all USB versions and made things REALLY confused. Here are the new names and speeds of the different versions of USB.
| Old Name | Released | New Name | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|
| USB 2.0 | April, 2000 | USB 2.0 | Up to 60 MB/sec |
| USB 3.0 | Nov. 2008 | USB 3.1 Gen 1 | Up to 625 MB/sec |
| USB 3.1 | July, 2013 | USB 3.1 Gen 2 | Up to 1.25 GB/sec |
| USB 3.2 | August, 2017 | USB 3.1 Gen 2×2 | Up to 2.5 GB/sec |
| USB4 | August, 2019 | USB 4 | Up to 5 GB/sec |
NOTE: Keep in mind that all versions of USB, except for USB4, are optimized for small file transfers and generally don’t provide all the bandwidth that the spec calls for. I don’t recommend any version of USB earlier than USB 3.2 for video editing.
I believe you need to fix your chart. The new names are “USB 3.2…” not “USB 3.1…”, correct?
Tod:
Nope. The USB forum changed the names 2-3 months ago and made everything a lot more confusing.
Larry
Where does my 2019 5K iMac’s Thunderbolt fir into this schema?
Marc:
Depending upon which port you plug into, your iMac supports USB 3 and USB-C.
Check your System Report for more details.
Larry