1.2.2.4 Connection: USB

USB (universal serial bus) is the most popular standard for external low speed peripherals. USB 1.1 has a relatively slow maximum transfer rate at 12Mbps (mega bits per second). However, USB 2.0 has a much higher maximum transfer rate at 480Mbps.

Unlike most other connectors, USB connectors are designed to withstand a lot of insertions. These connectors are also designed to without a bit of abuse. Therefore, USB is now used for practically all external peripherals, ranging from printers, joysticks, keyboards, mice to external hard disk enclosures.