USB 3.0

USB 3.0, completed in 2008, has extremely fast transmission speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s.

USB 2.0, by comparison, could only use 480 Mbit/s.

Additionally, USB 3.0 has significantly less power consumption, is backwards compatible with 2.0 drives, and offers huge performance increases in every way.

The first USB 3.0 motherboards and devices came to the market in late 2009.