Portable HDD - Why Do They Use That Weird Old Fat USB3 Plug?

Was looking at new Portable Hdd as a backup drive. Thought they'd be usbC now, but only SSD are. HDD ones are old micro-Usb3. What's the deal with that? Surely usb C are better now?

Comments

  • +1

    USB is an absolute mess nowadays and has really moved away from it's "Universal" namesake. Even USB-C has so many variants now.

    Most hard drives still use SuperSpeed Micro B as it's more than sufficient throughput for portable hard drive speeds and doesn't gain anything by adding more expensive USB-C connections on the drive enclosure itself. That'll change over time as it always does.

    • apart from these drives nothing uses those Micro B right?

      • +1

        Not really. Micro B SuperSpeed is essentially just Micro-B (pins 1-5 below) with additional bank of "SuperSpeed" pins (6-10) for higher full-duplex data transfers. Not much I have encountered needs that, maybe some specialist tools or devices.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#/media/File:USB_3…

      • +1

        Some USB 3.0 card readers still use Micro B connector in a similar fashion as portable HDDs.

    • USB-C has so many variants now.

      There's only one type of USB-C plug. You can run many different technologies through that plug though. For example, my phone runs USB2 through a USB-C plug (probably to save 20c per phone)

  • +3

    Samsung Galaxy Note 3 has the same plug. It's still perfectly good, right guys?………. Guys? /s

  • At least they dropped mini A!

    • +2

      atleast it's easy to see up & down
      .

    • +1

      Mini Bs on older phones and cameras were then worse!

    • +1

      Outside printers I don't think I've seen USB-B; and USB 3-B is even rarer.

      Started thinking about the different combinations I've got at home and god it's a rabbit hole… "Universal" my arse! I can think of at least 10 different combinations just straight off the top. Male/Female; 1/2, 3; A,B,C; Full, Mini, Micro…

      • +1

        My USB switch(er) uses USB-B. The USB hubs in Dell monitors (and probably others) use/used USB-B.

  • Years ago it was the sensible solution, so now it's become a bit of a standard. They will phase it out though.

  • +1

    3 trigger words in the title. I feel personally attacked

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