TITLE
    USB: Transfer Speed Compared To Other Technologies
Article ID:
Created:
Modified: 		24531
8/12/98
4/4/00
TOPIC

    This article compares USB data transfer rates to other similar technologies such as ADB, Serial, SCSI, and FireWire.

DISCUSSION

    Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a peripheral bus standard developed by the computer and telecommunication industry that allows you to connect a variety of peripheral devices to your computer. USB supports two data transfer speeds; low throughput of 1.5 Mbps, and a high throughput of 12 Mbps.

    Below is a comparison of speeds of different technologies, from slowest to fastest. Please note that these are theoretical maximum throughputs of the different technology.
    Technology
    Theoretical Maximum Throughput
    Apple Desktop Bus (ADB)
    0.01 Mbps or 10 Kbps
    Serial Port
    0.23 Mbps or 230 Kbps
    Geoport Port
    2 M bps
    USB at low data transfer rate
    1.5 M bps
    USB at high data transfer rate
    12 M bps
    FireWire
    400 Mbps
    SCSI
    1-40 MB /sec
    Fast SCSI
    8-80 MB /sec
    Ultra SCSI-3
    18-160 MB /sec

Document Information
Product Area: iMac
Category: USB
Sub Category: Features
Keywords: kimac

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