What Is an SS USB Port?

We're all used to seeing the USB icons on a modern computer, but you might also see the letters SS next to some of your USB ports. In this guide, we explain what the SS stands for.

SS refers to SuperSpeed, a new transfer rate that can transfer data at up to 5 Gbit/s (625 MB/s), which is ten times faster than USB 2.0. Impressive.



Any USB device can benefit from faster transfer speeds using the SuperSpeed ports. It is recommended that manufacturers label SuperSpeed ports SS and use blue colored cables, so you know Superspeed is supported.

USB 3.0 has been upgraded to USB 3.1, and finally 3.2 in 2017. Each version supports SuperSpeed preserving the original speeds while still increasing the speeds even further.

If your computer was built after 2017, you probably have USB 3.2, which introduced two new SuperSpeed+ transfer modes over the USB-C connector using two-lane operation, with data rates of 10 and 20 Gbit/s (1250 and 2500 MB/s). So, yeah, it's fast.

We could go further in-depth, but everything else is pretty geeky (read boring), and hopefully, we answered your question.

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