A Rant about USB Specs (and their absolutely stupid naming)

Disclaimers

Prepare for headaches and a lot of frustration. The following is absolutely confusing and makes no sense.

Also, I wrote this up somewhere around Summer/Autumn 2024. I checked this stuff multiple times, but still cannot guarantee that all information is correct, and, maybe things already changed again between writing this and publishing it. So be aware of that and whenever someone tells you "it's easy to understand, a higher number means better", no, it's just not.

Basics

Originally, USB had simple names, starting with USB 1.0, which later upgraded to 1.1 by fixing a few issues. Then USB 2.0 came out, which is still used for many things today, later, USB 3.0 came out. Each generation added a few new features and increased the speed and everything was fine.

Then, someone probably had a stroke and came up with something that now sits among the most confusing bullshit that ever existed. But maybe it was just for marketing to be able to fool people without actually lying. Below, you find a list of all names that I could find. Some of them are data rates, some are marketing names, some are operation modes and some are what I would call generations, which is comparable to what I wrote about in the first paragraph (1.0, 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0), but all of them can be found on marketing material of Hardware.

Then there are also different names for what is the same thing, they just renamed it to make it sound newer (literally), and the only thing I could imagine why they did that is to scam people.

By the way, my main source for all of this is Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB

Let's get to it

First, there was USB 1.0 and later 1.1, both with 12 Mbit/s (according to Wikipedia 1.1 fixed a few issues of 1.0), then came USB 2.0 with up to 480 Mbit/s came out.
Pretty clear until now, but now it gets complicated.

• USB 1.0 "Full Speed" (FS) from 1996, 12 Mbit/s, also allowing "Low Speed" (LS) with 1.5 Mbit/s
  • USB 1.1 from 1998 fixed some issues but speeds were the same
  • as of September 2022 renamed to "Basic speed"
• USB 2.0 "Hi-Speed" (HS) from 2000, up to 480 Mbit/s
  • later "USB 2.0 revised", which added the "micro" connectors, although this was never a name for this

Now it gets crazy:

• 5 Gbit/s
  • 2008: "USB 3.0 SuperSpeed" (Short: "SS" as seen on many products)
  • renamed to "USB 3.1 Gen 1"
  • renamed again to "USB 3.2 Gen 1x1" (or also "USB 3.2 Gen 1" without the "x1", depending on where you are reading)
  • as of September 2022 renamed to "USB 5Gbps"

There are already four names for the same thing, because... well, I don't know. Probably because "we need a new name to make it sound like a new standard so people buy new stuff although it is exactly the same as before but with a different name", but it doesn't stop here.

• 10 Gbit/s "SuperSpeed+" (SS+)
  • 2013: "USB 3.1"
  • renamed to USB 3.1 Gen 2
  • renamed again to "USB 3.2 Gen 2x1" (as with 5 Gbit/s, the x1 seems to be optional)
  • as of September 2022 renamed to "USB 10Gbps"
  • this speed is also provided by the "USB4 Gen2x1" operation mode
    • that's not an official name for this standard, but an operation mode
    • previously the operation modes were part of the marketing names, now it seems to be just an operation mode that is used in the background, but not part of the official naming scheme
    • while we're at it: USB4 Gen2x1 introduces the possibility to tunnel USB 3.2, DisplayPort and PCIe traffic to make it compatible to the Thunderbolt 3 standard (but not Thunderbolt 4 although it uses the same speed)
• 20 Gbit/s "SuperSpeed+ two lane"
  • 2017: "USB 3.2"
  • later renamed to "USB 3.2 Gen 2x2"
  • "includes USB 3.2 Gen 1x2 and Gen 2x2 two-lane modes" therefore also often called "USB 3.2 Gen 1x2"
  • also "USB4 20Gbps" with a small twist: same speed, but protocol-wise a bit different, therefore not easily interchangeable
    • "USB4 Gen 2x2" and "USB4 Gen 3x1" operation modes
  • as of September 2022 renamed to "USB 20Gbps"
• 40 Gbit/s
  • 2019: "USB4" or "USB4 40Gbps" (the missing space is not a mistake, it seems like after 20 years they decided "hey, let's get rid of that space between USB and the version")
  • "USB4 Gen 3x2" operation mode
  • as of September 2022 renamed to "USB 40Gbps"
• 80 Gbit/s
  • 2022: "USB4 2.0" (at this point they are just trolling, right?)
  • uses the "USB4 Gen 4x2" mode, again it looks like the mode is not included in the name anymore, but just in case you stumble upon it
  • as of September 2022 (same year?) renamed to "USB 80Gbps"
  • btw. there seems to be an asynchronous mode that allows to split up the data rate to 120 Gbit/s in one and 40 Gbit/s in the other direction

I have two main problems with this:

1. There are many different names for the same thing. Depending on where you are reading and how up-to-date this page is, or in other cases how up-to-date the product is (and thereby its official certification), you read different names for what is literally the same thing. Nobody understands what is compatible with what. To give an example, when I had this problem (which eventually led to me writing this post here), I was looking for a new laptop and a docking station. The docks were announced a few years ago and haven't changed since. The laptop on the other hand was announced in 2024 and features the latest standards and therefore uses the latest names. Now the price question: Are all docking stations fully compatible with the laptop? After understanding all of this crap, yes they are fully compatible since they are using the same standard, although there are many different names on the product pages.
2. Absolutely confusing names. How would someone know (without digging through a lot of documentation) that "USB 3.2 Gen 2" is the same as "USB 3.1 Gen 2, but "USB 3.2 Gen 1" is slower than "USB 3.1 Gen 2"? Even while writing this, I'm always double and triple checking to make sure I don't write something wrong. Absolute bullshit and further, misleading, since everyone would expect "USB 3.2 Gen 1" to be better/faster than "USB 3.1 Gen 2" or at least equally good.

I hope they will now stick to the "USB xGbps" scheme, although with different operation modes (I also read about USB4 Gen 2 and Gen3) I kind of doubt that.