The next advancement in USB technology will be USB4. This organisation is responsible for the naming conventions found on USB cables and devices. USB-IF, the organisation responsible for maintaining USB (Universal Serial Bus) specifications and compliance, did this to make it easier for developers and manufacturers to have the same relevant information, to help ensure products are properly developed to be backwards compatible. Therefore, USB 3.0 is the same thing as USB 3.1 Gen 1. Since then, we’ve moved on from USB 3.0 which is now known as USB 3.1 Gen 1. It was a big improvement from USB 2.0 which first arrived in 2000 with transfer speeds of only 480 Mbit/s. USB 3.0 was released over ten years ago in 2008 and it was the third major revision to the USB standard.

We’ll examine the difference between USB 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2, and talk about why Gen 2 is better than Gen 1, as well as providing other helpful information that will allow you to understand everything you need to know about USB standards.

The USB standards and their specifications can be a little challenging to understand, especially after their many updates.

Usb 2 vs usb 3 size difference