Here’s what I tell people about the difference between USB 4 and USB-C

I probably don’t have to tell you that the situation with USB ports has become a little complicated, no matter that the U is supposed to stand for “universal.” While you’re not going to find USB 1.0 hardware lingering around, there are still many different speeds, and using the wrong port or cable can severely bottleneck performance — the jump between 2.0 and 3.0 is night-and-day if you’re trying to backup your computer. On top of that there are multiple connector types in circulation, which can quickly get confusing if you’ve got a bunch of older accessories sitting in boxes. When my wife and I moved last year, I spent a surprising amount of time figuring out which cables I should get rid of.