Posted 09/25/09 at 08:42:02 PM by Ryan Whitwam

The first USB 3.0 controller was just recently certified, and now there’s a speedy external hard drive to go with it. Freecom has announced their “Hard Drive XS 3.0” as the first to support the new USB SuperSpeed standard.

The drives will come in 1TB, 1.5TB and 2TB sizes. The enclosure contains a standard 3.5 inch drive and is capable of data transfer speeds of up to 130MB/s. Not bad for a first attempt. The XS drives are backwards compatible with USB 2.0, meaning users can purchase them right away with the intention of upgrading to USB 3.0 when it becomes widely available. They will be on sale starting this November in Europe. The 1TB version will go for a not completely outlandish $175.

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Posted 07/28/09 at 10:46:13 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Fujitsu has begun shipping its first generation USB 3.0-to-SATA chip, the company announced in a press release on Monday. The MB86C30A, as the chip is called, is capable of delivering the 5Gbps maximum data transfer rate expected from SuperSpeed USB. The first engineering samples based on the chip will be ready next month. However, commercial variants will only be available next year.

The chip features Fujitsu’s AES encryption/decryption engine that supports data encryption/decryption at a rate of up to 300MB per second. The first PCs equipped with Superspeed USB are expected to become available during the far end of the year, according to the July issue of Nikkei Electronics Asia.

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Posted 07/03/09 at 02:58:29 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Taiwanese manufacturers might have positioned themselves to begin shipping SuperSpeed USB (aka USB 3.0) before the curtain falls on the year 2009, according to the July issue of Nikkei Electronics Asia. The magazine believes that it was quite evident from the various prototypes on display at the SuperSpeed USB Developers Conference held in Tokyo May 20-21, 2009 that the commercial rollout of the next-gen USB interface in PCs is nigh.

Japanese company NEC Electronics Corp shipped samples of the first USB 3.0 host controller in early June and expects to churn out a million every month beginning this September. The first devices based on the interface will most certainly be external hard disk drives, with more exciting applications like hd video streaming expected to follow later.

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