I need to buy an external hard drive for backups. I have only USB2 ports on my Windows 7 PC. When it dies, I will probably replace it with a PC having only USB3 ports.
Why do the ads for some drives show only USB3 and some both USB2 and USB3? I thought USB3 was downwards compatible with USB2?
Thanks for any help anyone can give me.
ray37
hi,
yes you are correct they are backwards compatible just will have slower transfer speeds.
If needing the full USB 3.0 speeds before being able to replace/upgrade the computer, here's some examples of Add-in cards, both PCI and PCIe X1:
PCI Add-on Cards - Newegg.com
You can run USB2 devices on USB3 ports and vice versa. And you are right, they would only need USB3 ports and some new PCs come like that.
It may be that the USB3 ports are more expensive than the USB2 ports and that's why not all manufacturers go to USB3 only.
Thanks to everyone!
Now, all I have to do is find the money for the drive.
ray37
Quote