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The functions of USB ports are to connect a variety of different devices, such as mice, keyboards, printers, media drives and many more. These devices are mostly essential for the computer to function at its best, but some are to aid the user, such as game controllers and certain media drives. The transfer rate of USB’s vary on what USB type it is, such as 1.1 or 2.0. 1.1 operates up to 12 Mbps, while the 2.0 operates up to 480 Mbps. Parallel ports are used for connecting external devices such as printers and scanners, the port is dated, so most of the devices that will connect to that kind of port would also have to be dated. Although, the port has been updated, making it 10 times faster than the older one, but it’s still slower compared to the newer ports. Serial ports are used in older computer, and for older devices. Serial ports only transmit one bit of data at a time, making it highly slow. So that is why, in most computers, the serial port has been replaced with USB’s.