The same rule applies if you have a 2.0 hard drive and a 3.0 laptop. If you buy that 3.0 hard drive but still have a 2.0 laptop, you'll be able to use it you'll just pay more money for performance advantages you can't yet enjoy. USB 3.0 devices also work with 2.0 partners, but only at 2.0 speed. And not even all new computers and hard drives support USB 3.0, so make sure you take a close look at the specifications for the hardware you plan to buy. Thus, if you're in the market for an external hard drive for your laptop, both the hard drive and the laptop have to support USB 3.0 in order for you to take advantage of the speed it offers, which means they both have to be very new.

That holds for computers just as it does for hard drives and other peripherals. The first devices that were certified for USB 3.0 were introduced just over a year ago, and they're only just now arriving in stores. also apparently usb 2.0 can only read or write at once while usb 3.All this talk of speed is moot if you don't have a computer that supports this new technology, and very few do at this point. Only reason I could see for using usb 3.0 with audio is if you were using it somehow to writing/record in hi res to a sd card or usb drive since they are often tailored to high read speed but poor write speed (as in close to very hi res bit rates) and I've noticed with sd cards that usb 3.0 often slightly improves the write speed vs usb 2.0 (getting a better speed card/drive is much better though)Įdit: sorry, I remembered that USB 3.0 also is more power efficient so might be a bit better if you dac is drawing power from your source for some reason (eg if you're charging and using simultaneously when plugged into a computer). I have had faster read/write speeds from my faster external drives after changing to usb 3.0 interfaces. The difference is probably negligible for audio considering that USB 2.0 bit-rate (I typically see 20-30MB per sec running from a hard drive that can go faster) can easily cover the bit rates from higher quality files (like 5mb for some hi res 24bit file).ģ.0 only really stands out when you're working with video or constantly editing across external drives, as usb 2.0 limits can be below the max speed of faster hard drives and ssds.

Usb 2 vs usb 3 for mice