The most popular ports used today on the system are the USB and FireWire ports — which allow you to connect devices such as flash drives, digital cameras, and digital video cameras. This table compares features of USB and FireWire, including the transfer rate and number of devices supported.
| Standard | Transfer Rate | Device Support |
| USB 1.0 | 12 Mbps | 127 devices |
| USB 2.0 | 480 Mbps | 127 devices |
| USB 3.0 | 5 Gbps | 127 devices |
| USB 3.1 | 10 Gbps | 127 devices |
| IEEE 1394 | 400 Mbps; also known as FireWire | 63 devices |
| IEEE 1394b | 800 Mbps; also known as FireWire 800 | 63 devices |
| FireWire S1600 | 1.6 Gbps | 63 devices |
| FireWire S3200 | 3.2 Gbps | 63 devices |
