Discrepancies between flash drives 2.0 & 3.0 do exist. The USB 3.0 flash drive connectors have 5 additional contacts that transmit signals. This allows USB 3.0 to receive power from the interface, which is designed for USB 2.0. Nevertheless, the divergence between these two flash drives is not only in the connectors.
The most of users know about the existence of 3.0/2.0 options, but they are unaware what their discrepancies really are. In general, USB is a way of connecting computer & devices to another PC. It was developed back in 1996 & it is still the standard way of connection nowadays. This technology is obtained by mice, scanners, printers, game consoles, flashes & other external devices.
Since the day of the invention & to date, USB devices were sold in a quantity of more than 10 billion pieces.
- USB 3.0 flash drive differs from the device USB 2.0 with the external look & speed. It is estimated that the USB 2.0 device should have a speed of 480 megabits per second, but in fact, it does not even reach 250. The speed of USB 3.0 is calculated at 4.8 gigabytes per second, which exceeds the speed of a USB 2.0 flash drive by ten.
- The second divergence between the mentioned is the current strength, which in USB 3.0 is increased to 900 mA. In 2.0, the current power is 500 mA.
- The USB 2.0 cable comprises of four wires. 3.0 cable has two more pairs. Due to this, the wire became thicker. New contacts are in a different row, separate from the old ones. The cable for USB 3.0 can be recognized by looking at the contacts. The new cables are not as flexible & thicker, so they are as well more expensive.
This innovation also influenced the length of the cable. The normal length for USB 2.0 can be 5 meters. The length of the SuperSpeed USB cable is only 3 meters. At the same time, this cable has a special coating, which prevents electromagnetic interference.
The implementation concerns the transmission devices, as well as the storage of large amounts of information. Thus, the discrepancies between USB 3.0 & USB 2.0 are:
- the speed of data transfer
- the increase in amperage
- cost
An exciting detail about the distinguishing peculiarities of different flash drives: you can distinguish them even in appearance. Flash drives 3.0 presented on our site have inserts of blue & standard devices (2.0) are always made in black plastic. Having studied the assortment of logousb.com, you can see this, comparing models. Now you can distinguish flash drives at the first glance!
Modern technologies – UDP-chips
Today, many manufacturers use UDP chips – this is the most expensive materials & the higher quality available on the market. In addition, the size of the UDP chips allows storing the miniature sizes of products. Due to a single layout (controller & memory chips are in one housing), UDP memory chips are extremely shockproof, dustproof & waterproof (according to IEC 60529).
Systems on the chip, in comparison with previous USB solutions, consume less energy, cheaper & work more reliably than chipsets with the same functionality. Due to the exceptional compactness, the drive is easily left connected to the laptop when used in mobile regime.
Trait of the protocol
UDP is a transport protocol that transmits datagram messages without the need to establish a connection on the IP network.
Comparison
The divergence of protocols TCP and UDP is in the ‘delivery guarantee’. TCP requires a response from the client to whom the data package is delivered, the confirmation of delivery & for this, it needs a pre-established connection. Also, the TCP protocol is considered reliable, whereas UDP even received the name from ‘protocol of un-trusted datagrams’. TCP eliminates data loss, duplication & packet shuffling, delays. UDP allows all this & it does not need a connection for work. The processes to which data is transmitted over UDP must manage the received, even with the losses. TCP controls the congestion of the connection; UDP does not control anything but the integrity of the received datagrams.
On the other hand, due to such non-selectivity & uncontrollability, UDP delivers data packets (datagrams) much faster, therefore for flash drives that are designed for high bandwidth & fast exchange, UDP can be considered the optimal protocol. In combination with a compact size, these flash drives are simply ideal for almost any purpose – for personal or business use.
Carrying out an experiment
When comparing the performance of two devices – flash drives 2.0 & 3.0 – the results are as follows:
- reading speed, i.e. copying data from a flash drive to a disk, significantly increased only when transferring large files, which ended 2.5 times faster. At the same time, it was higher than the recording speed of the standard hard disk of the notebook (5400 rpm) – it was a bottleneck during operating
- writing speed, i.e. copying data from disk to flash, also increased only when moving large files, which ended up 25% faster.
Sum up
Of course, these figures may vary depending on the set of files & other circumstances, but the overall picture is understandable. Although the theoretical bandwidth of USB 3.0 is 10 times higher than that of USB 2.0, in practice such a gain in speed isn’t the regular case.
However, the USB 3.0 interface allows you to quickly exchange files between the flash drive & the hard drive of the computer & this divergence is especially noticeable when reading data from a flash. In this case, the USB 3.0 is faster than 2.0 even when connected to a USB 2.0 port. Choose what is more important for you: device performance, its price or appearance. In order for your flash drive to have a nice appearance you can use the services of usb logo print company. Of course, everything depends on personal preferences but the technologies are moving forward. Keep up with them & choose the best at logousb.com!
