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You are here: Home / Tech Questions & Answers / Q&A: Can I add USB 3.0 ports to an older Mac?

Q&A: Can I add USB 3.0 ports to an older Mac?

Posted on November 5, 2020

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Question from Shelley Y.:  Hi Rick. I read your article about adding USB 3.0 ports to a PC and I was wondering if they can be added to a Mac too?

My computer is an older Mac Pro MC560LL/A and it only has USB 2.0 ports. I’d really like to be able to use a USB 3.0 hard drive with this computer.

My question is can I add some USB 3.0 ports to my Mac Pro?

Rick’s answer:  Yes, you sure can Shelley, and it’s very easy to do. What’s more, it won’t cost you very much to do it.

All you have to do is purchase a USB 3.0 expansion card and install it in an empty expansion slot. Just make sure you buy a card that’s designed to work with a Mac Pro instead of (or in addition to) a Windows PC.

But before we go any further, are you aware that USB 3.0 is backward compatible with USB 2.0?

That means you could always just plug a USB 3.0 external hard drive into one of your machine’s USB 2.0 ports if you wanted to and it’ll work just fine.

But of course there’s a downside to doing that: The drive will transfer data back and forth with the computer at the much slower USB 2.0 speed, essentially negating the advantage of using a fast USB 3.0 drive.

For that reason I recommend going ahead and adding some USB 3.0 ports to your computer as originally planned so you can take advantage of the much faster USB 3.0 speed. I only told you about the backward compatibility because I want you to be aware of all of your options.

I did a little research and discovered that there are several USB 3.0 expansion cards available for Mac Pros. This one from Inateck plugs into an empty PCI-E slot and it will add 4 USB 3.0 ports to your computer.

And by the way, you also have the option to skip USB 3.0 and add some USB-C 3.1 ports to your Mac Pro instead by installing this card from Ableconn.

As you can see, you should have no trouble at all adding USB 3.0 or even USB-C 3.1 ports to your Mac Pro, Shelley. Good luck!


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