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I am planning to buy external hard drive that supports USB 3.0. Will it work with my old notebook that has USB 2.0?

nhinkle
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igor
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  • possible duplicate of [Can a USB 3.0 pen drive be used on a USB 2.0 port?](http://superuser.com/questions/270744/can-a-usb-3-0-pen-drive-be-used-on-a-usb-2-0-port) – Jason C Jul 06 '14 at 18:47

3 Answers3

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Yes, USB 3.0 is backwards compatible. However, some new instructions are added to the new 3.0 standard so some functionality might not work. However, most hardware will support USB 2.0 and I won't expect too much problems with an external hard drive.

Reference from PCWorld:

The beauty of USB 3.0 is its backward compatibility with USB 2.0; you need a new cable and new host adapter (or, one of the Asus or Gigabyte motherboards that supports USB 3.0) to achieve USB 3.0, but you can still use the device on a USB 2.0 port and achieve typical USB 2.0 performance.

Pylsa
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Yes, the devices will work together at USB 2.0 speeds.

weiyin
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It depends on your device. A hard drive sould work but obviously not with full speed.

lweller
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