USB3 is rated at 5Gb/S, USB3.1 is 10Gb/S
SATA I is rated at 1.5Gb/S
SATA II is rated at 3Gb/S
SATA III is rated at 6Gb/S

So theoretically USB3 is just slower than a SATA III interface, but I believe that many SSD's don't actually have the performance to reach the full 6Gb/S capacity of SATA III - they reach just a little over 5.2Gb/S andthat is only for sequential reads and writes - really I'd think the difference is getting pretty academic unless you are using RAID arrays that can read from multiple drives to make up the shortfall.

OTOH, Thunderbolt is rated at 10Gb/S and Thunderbolt II is rated at 20 Gb/S. Expect to see more Thunderbolt in Wintel boxes.

It is also interesting to note that Thunderbolt is the successor to mDP (Mini Display Port) and adds PCI Express support to the interface whilst retaining backward compatibility with mDP.


--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya laugh --=--
You're only paranoid if you're wrong!