A majority of laptops come with USB 2.0 ports, but that will change as its successor, USB 3.0, begins to take hold. HP has said it will bring USB 3.0 to a majority of its high-performance and business laptops later this year.
USB ports connect host devices, such as PCs, to other devices such as printers and storage drives. USB 3.0 increases bandwidth and transfers data close to 10 times faster than USB 2.0, according to the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), an organization defining USB standards.
The USB 3.0 interface can offer a transfer rate of 5G bps (bits per second) compared to 480M bps per second for USB 2.0. For example, 1G byte of data can be transferred to a host device in 3.3 seconds with USB 3.0, compared to 33 seconds with USB 2.0.
Transfer rates of drives will increase as technology surrounding USB 3.0 develops. Over the last few months, storage devices like external hard drives and SSDs (solid-state drives) with varying data transfer rates have appeared on shelves from companies like OCZ, SuperTalent and LaCie.
Super Talent’s USB 3.0 thumb drives
Super Talent is offering three USB 3.0 flash drives with capacities up to 256GB under the SuperCrypt, Raiddrive and Express Drive brands. The Express Driveis the entry-level brand, and ships with capacities of 16GB and 32GB. The line achieves data transfer speeds of up to 125M bps. Amazon.com is selling the 32GB drive for US$120, which is relatively expensive compared to USB 2.0 thumb drives. For example, a Patriot Xporter Dash USB 2.0 thumb drive is priced at $60 on Newegg.
The SuperCrypt drive automatically encrypts data and comes in capacities up to 256GB. It achieves transfer speeds of 240M bps. The prices range from $120 for a16GB drive on Amazon.com to $769 for a 256GB drive on eWiz.
The fastest Raiddrive contains two SSDs in a RAID array, and achieves data transfer speeds up to 300M bps. A Raiddrive with 128GB of storage is priced at $595 on Amazon.com. The 32GB drive is $255, while the 64GB drive is $365.
For all SuperTalent drives, users will have to wait three to four weeks for shipping from Amazon. The drives work with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, according to the company.
