Vector image showing common video ports. — Dragana Gerasimoski/Shutterstock

USB port icon set. — Pavel Stasevich/Shutterstock

Most connectors are only compatible with a single port type because each port is made to accommodate a particular connector type. In other words, you cannot attach a USB connector to an Ethernet port.

Most ports are identified by icons, and some are color-coded to match the connector.

Serial ports are used to transfer data one bit at a time.

Groups of data are transferred using parallel ports.
Thunderbolt, USB, and HDMI are types of ports, which are connection points on a computer. They let you plug in peripherals—external devices like keyboards, mice, printers, monitors, and storage drives.

These modern ports are much faster than older ones like RS-232 serial ports (an early type of port used for things like modems and old mice). They allow for quick data transfer, which means files and information move between the computer and the device very fast.

Today, most devices connect using USB (Universal Serial Bus), SATA (Serial ATA, used for hard drives), NVMe (a fast connection for solid-state drives), or wireless methods like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

In the past, older systems used SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) to connect storage devices, but that’s mostly outdated now.

Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) and Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports allow a computer to have multiple peripherals connected to it at once. All of them transfer data more quickly than serial ports.