USB – Universal Serial Bus – an interconnect standard for connecting external peripheral devices to a desktop or notebook computer. USB allows easy, high-speed connections of peripherals to PCs that, once plugged in, configure automatically. It is used for a wide range of peripherals such as digital cameras, USB flash storage sticks, smartphones and many more. The USB cable can also deliver power to connected devices. The first USB standard was released in 1995 running at 12 Mbps, and has undergone subsequent speed upgrades;
- USB 1.0 – 1995 – 12 Mbps.
- USB 2.0 – 2001 – 480Mbps or 60 MBps.
- USB 3.0 – 2009 – 5.0 Gbps or 640 MBps.
- USB 3.1 – 2013 – 10Gbps
There are different connector types: Mini-USB, Micro-USB, USB-Type-C;