USB - what does that mean? Easily explained

You can connect devices such as hard drives, memory sticks or cell phones to the computer via USB. We explain what USB means and how it works in our article. You will also learn what you can do thanks to the technology.

What does USB mean?

The abbreviation USB stands for "Universal Serial Bus". It is a so-called serial bus system that you can use to connect external devices to the PC.

• In computer technology, a bus system is a system for data transmission. The special thing here is that the participants use a common transmission path.
• In the serial bus system, individual bits are transmitted one after the other. Each bit contains part of the information, i.e. the data to be transmitted.

What does USB offer?

Each computer has one or more USB ports. Various devices can be connected to these connections.

• When you connect a device to the computer via USB, it automatically recognizes what type it is. So you can connect storage media such as USB sticks and hard drives, but also printers, keyboards or computer mice via USB.
• The connection is made using a USB cable. The connection to the PC is standardized, external devices have a wide variety of connection types.
• The first version of the USB system was introduced in 1996. USB 1.0 delivered a transfer rate of 10 Mbit / s, i.e. 10, 000 bits per second.
• USB 2.0 was introduced in 2000. With a transfer rate of 480 Mbit / s, it is the most used system today.
• USB 3.0 is even less common. It offers 4.8 Gbps transfer rate and was introduced in 2008. TIpp: We compared USB 3.0 with USB 2.0.
• USB 3.1 was only introduced in 2014. It offers 10 GBit / s, i.e. 10, 000 MBit / s. New devices already have USB 3.1. However, since both the computer and the external device must support the standard, it is not yet very widespread. Also read our comparison between USB 3.1 and USB 3.0.

What the different colors mean for USB connections, we clarify in another article. Learn how to make a USB stick bootable here.