Why You Should Upgrade Your Flash Drive From USB 2.0 To USB 3.0

by Brooke Perry technical content writer

Although, USB 3.0 has gained more popularity in the recent past, but there are still some users who prefer to own a USB 2.0 flash drive. It has been observed that the latest generation of mother boards is not always available with appropriate controllers, which are compatible with USB 3.0. Apart from this, the latest chipsets are offering only USB 3.0 support as the PCI bus and PS/2 connectors which are already missing on some modern mother boards. The older PCs still use the good old USB 2.0 which is known for its performance and productivity features.

 

Of course, the new standards have eventually replaced the USB 2.0 but the device recognition time of the USB 3.0 is significantly higher than its predecessor. If it is taking more time to respond, then is there any point of adopting this technology and switching your peripherals to USB 3.0? Is there any difference in performance between USB 2.0 and 3.0 disks when connected to a USB 2.0 controller?

 

To answer these two questions, you need to read this article that highlights the pros and cons of switching your flash drive USB 2.0 to the new and advanced 3.0.

 

Speed improvements

 

A USB device is a carrier that defines the maximum signaling speed that is allowed on a device for communicating across a USB port. Theoretically, the USB 2.0 offers a maximum signaling rate of 480 megabits per second while USB 3.0 has changed this rate to 5 gigabits per second, resulting in speed efficient results. In other words, you can roughly state that working on USB 3.0 will offer a ten times faster experience than that of the USB 2.0.

 

If the comparison would have ended here, then upgrading your flash drives to a ten times faster medium will be no barrier at all. However, in reality the speed just defines the standard signaling rate of data allowed through a USB port but the USB drives are restricted by the speed of their flash memory.

 

Accessing the USB 3.0 drive through a USB 2.0 port will allow the data transfer at a standard rate of USB 2.0. If you want an enhanced speed and excellent performance, then try connecting your USB 3.0 drive to a USB 3.0 port. You can easily decide that whether you have a USB 3.0 port or a USB 2.0 port by observing its inner side as USB 3.0 ports are generally colored blue inside.

 

Observe drive-specific benchmarks

 

Don’t trust anything blindly as you might feel that a USB 3.0 will anyway work faster than a USB 2.0, but actually it can be vice versa. You may be surprised to know that a USB 3.0 allows faster transfer speeds, but you cannot guarantee that every drive will take advantage of that factor. The speed or transfer rate of the drive also depends on other factors as well, such as the speed of the flash memory located inside the drive is also very crucial.

 

If you’re looking for a good and fast USB drive for official use, then you should check the benchmarks of time and speed to make your final choice. Don’t believe the manufacturer’s claimed speed rate rather try and record benchmarks on your own, as manufacturers often give you the most exaggerated numbers to mislead you.

 

Pricing

 

Pricing is a huge factor here as many of the USB 2.0 flash drives are super cheap while USB 3.0 drives holds higher price tags. An 8 GB USB 2.0 flash drive will cost somewhere around $10 or a 4 GB flash drives can often be found on sale for $5. In comparison, a USB 3.0 will cost you $40 or more to experience a tremendous speed improvement in your data transfer rate.

 

The major deciding factors behind pricing is how much you want to spend and for what you’ll use the drive for? If you want a small and cheaper drive for moving documents around occasionally, then a USB 2.0 is fine. On the other hand, if you want a drive that can be used frequently and your nature of work requires a lot of speed, then the USB 3.0 is probably what you require.

 

Above mentioned are some of the factors that can impact the performance of your flash drives. Nowadays, most of the machines are offering support to both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 drives so that the user can use drives of their choice. If you use Internet connection or Bluetooth technology for data transfer, then don't bother much between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. Sequential read and write speeds are two of the prime factors that need to be focused on while purchasing a flash drive.

 

About the Author:  Hi! I am Brook M. Perry, a prolific blog writer and keen author of articles related to computer security and solution for issues related to computers and mobile devices. Being associated with the reputed best pc tuneup service provider Qresolve, I have resolved thousands of tech issues for our customers from worldwide. Computer laptop support My areas of interest are PC security, endpoint security system, router support etc. You can follow me for my useful remote computer support articles on Ezine and other article-oriented websites.

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Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.

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