There’s some confusion on the market in respect to what the different types of USB standards mean. From Type A to Type C, and from USB 1.0 to USB 3.1 the USB landscape is consistantly chopping and changing making it difficult to know what you want and need. Knowing this, I’m about to give you a quick run down of what it all means.
Type
There are three main standards, Type A, Type B (Type B-Mini and Type B-Micro are subsets of this) and Type C, the last of which is now the standard for high speed, quick charging devices. The “Type” relates only to the physical shape and dimensions of the plug (there are some technical differences as well, but we’ll leave that for another time)
Versions
The version of USB indicates the speed at which data can be transferred. Generally the higher the number, the higher the theoretical data transmission capability of the cable.
A brief history of the USB standards are listed below:
| Release name | Release date | Maximum transfer rate | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| USB 0.8 | December 1994 | Prerelease | |
| USB 0.9 | April 1995 | Prerelease | |
| USB 0.99 | August 1995 | Prerelease | |
| USB 1.0-RC | November 1995 | Release Candidate | |
| USB 1.0 | January 1996 | Low Speed (1.5 Mbit/s) | |
| USB 1.1 | August 1998 | Full Speed (12 Mbit/s) | |
| USB 2.0 | April 2000 | High Speed (480 Mbit/s) | |
| USB 3.0 | November 2008 | SuperSpeed (5 Gbit/s) | Also referred to as USB 3.1 Gen 1 by USB 3.1 standard |
| USB 3.1 | July 2013 | SuperSpeed+ (10 Gbit/s) | Also referred to as USB 3.1 Gen 2 by USB 3.1 standard |
| USB 3.2 | September 2017 | SuperSpeed+ (20 Gbit/s) | Also referred to as USB 3.1 Gen 3 by USB 3.1 standard |
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