I recently installed an external hard drive for my dad. When connecting it to the PC, I realized that some of his USB ports were 1.0 and some were 2.0. I conducted a little test to see if the difference is really that noticeable. The USB 1.0 was painfully slow to the point that I could not even let it complete the transfer, I had to disconnect it and reconnect it to the USB 2.0 port, where the speed was blazing fast.

Well good news, USB 3.0 was recently announced. The speeds that USB 3.0 support are nothing short of astounding. If USB 2.0 supports 480 Mbps, USB 3.0 supports ten times that. It can transfer (are you sitting down?)  27 GBs in 70 seconds. In the digital age in which we live, this will make things so much easier. Just the thought of backing up my whole PC in a few minutes as opposed to today’s few hours, makes me want to go out and exchange all my “old” USB 2.0 gadgets.

Now all I need to do is figure how to explain the importance of this “upgrade” to my wife. Any ideas?

-Hillel

Don