How do I tell if a USB thumb drive is USB 3.0?
Make sure that you have a USB flash Drive plugged in.
Open terminal. Just press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the command(s) below:
lsusb
That will list USB information. Look for the USB flash drive info as shown in the image below:
Then do
lsusb -D /dev/bus/usb/003/023
To get more info about the USB flash drive, and look for bcdUSB, and that will tell you if its USB 2 or 3, plus as Dan said in his comment, USB 3 connectors are usually Blue.
Source:lsusb Man page
This test does not read the version from the device but tests for actual capabilities. If you don't have USB3.0 port, this test will give you false results so make sure to use USB 3.0 (or higher) port.
Open terminal and start by running this command:
lsusb
You should get a list of all USB devices in your system that looks something like this:
bushman@bushman-asus:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 04f2:b40a Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 13d3:3362 IMC Networks
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 1058:1042 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 056a:0065 Wacom Co., Ltd Bamboo
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Try to find your device (if you can't find it, unplug it, and run the command again and compare what is gone), my device in this case is:
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 1058:1042 Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
Now when you know the bus and device numbers run the same command with additional parameters:
lsusb -v -s 4:2
'-v' is for more verbosity, '-s [bus]:[device]' is to choose what to display. Change the numbers to reflect your device's bus:device numbers. Now you should get a long list of parameters but somewhere near the top of the list you should see parameter 'bcdUSB' and a corresponding value:
bcdUSB 3.00
The number is USB version currently in use, in my case USB 3.0. It's always the best version your system AND the device can support at the time so make sure you plug your devices into USB 3.0 port for this test.
I hope this helps.
Cheers, Bushman
If the inside of the USB is blue then the USB is 3.0.
USB 3.0 connectors are only usually blue. What makes a connector USB 3 instead of USB 2 is the presence of five extra pins, as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0#/media/File:Connector_USB_3_IMGP6024_wp.jpg
If the connector doesn't have the row of five pins then the drive can't be USB 3.0. If the connector does have the row of five pins then it would be very stupid if the drive isn't at least USB 3.0.