USB3 – ‘so what’ I hear you cry?

5Gbps I respond!

Well, actually 5Gbps is only a theoretical maximum, but it will still blow the doors off all previous USB, all FireWire and even eSATA.

So, should you rush out and buy a new motherboard?

Well, er, no.

Yes it will be fast and yes it will carry more power to external devices, but we won’t be able to realise all this goodness just yet – as devices that can actually use USB3 are only slowly starting to trickle out. Moreover, this sort of massive speed increase, will only really be of use for hard disk connections – your printer, keyboard, mouse etc really don’t need huge speed.

You’re phone on the other hand might – I foresee a time coming, where ten’s of gigabytes will be the norm – and getting this backed up etc will be no fun on USB2 – so roll on USB3!