Superguide: Timeline of USB, SATA, and Thunderbolt speeds

Posted by Paul Braren on Aug 24 2013 (updated on Mar 10 2015) in

There's a fair amount of discussion lately about USB 3.1, SATA Express (SATA 3.2), and finally, the Thunderbolt 2.0 that's arriving soon in the Apple Mac Pro. So when I was asked by a family member about the speed differences, I figured it'd be easy to answer. I Googled around, but all I found were various wiki articles, with no good comparative chart. I also found it challenging to figure out what year each technology made it to market, on actual shipping products. So I created a list.

00.5 Gbps - 2000 - USB 2.0 "High speed"
01.5 Gbps - 2003 - SATA1 aka SATA I
03.0 Gbps - 2003 - SATA2 aka SATA II (many older eSATA and mSATA implementations)
05.0 Gbps - 2008 - USB 3.0 "SuperSpeed"
06.0 Gbps - 2008 - SATA3 aka SATA III (many newer eSATA and mSATA implementations)
10.0 Gbps - 2011 - Thunderbolt
10.0 Gbps - 2014 - USB 3.1 "SuperSpeed" or "SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps"
16.0 Gbps - 2014 - SATA3.2 aka "SATA Express"
20.0 Gbps - 2013 - Thunderbolt 2

This just didn't cut it for me. A graphical depiction would be more useful, so I created a colorful table comparing speeds over time.

Please comment below if you spot anything any issues, citing your sources. Also appreciated are suggestions to help improve legibility, or links to sites with similar charts. Thank you!