USB Cable Confusion - are they all the same?

[Geoff Moore]

Hey, I have a few 500gb - 1tb flash drives from Samsung, Toshiba and Transcend. I'm having problems with the cables for a couple of them and I'm down to just one that works reliably, which I'm switching between the drives as needed.

I just went on eBay to get a couple of new cables and I saw a lot of them are being advertised as being for specific makes and models of drive. The cables for all of my drives look identical - they're all marked 'MICRO USB 3.0' at the drive end and '02' at the PC end. So are they all the same cable, or do I really have to hunt for cables for the specific models? I don't want to buy the wrong thing or mess up my drives. Many thanks for reading!

 

[drtweak]

yea for the most part they are all the same. The cable quality might be different but they should all be compatible with each other. USB is USB. Just the ends are different models.

 

[Paperdoc]

They MAY not be all identical. The connector for USB3 at the computer end looks a lot like a USB2 connector. But if you look inside it closely, you will see that a USB3 connector (of the size typically plugged into a computer port) has a second row of connection points inside it, and those mate with contacts in a true USB3 connector on the computer. Those extra contacts are important of proper function. Look closely at the one that works and compare to one that does not.

Don't forget, if your external devices are drawing power from the computer's USB3 port, that port can supply more power than is available from an older USB2 port. Many USB3 external devices need more power than they can get from a USB2 port. So be sure to plug those into the proper port.